In all but blood
by stormus
Summary: No child comes into the world without a destiny. Even when that destiny it is to bring about the start of another greater than one's own. The lives of a difficult prince and a laid back dragonlord-in-waiting cross and their individual destinies are set in motion, neither realising just how closely tied their predetermined purposes truly are. (Now with added Gorlois)
1. In all but blood: I: Chapter I

**In all but Blood**

**Summary:**_ No child comes into the world without a destiny. Even when that destiny it is to bring about the start of another greater than one's own. The lives of a difficult prince and a laid back dragonlord-in-waiting cross and their individual destinies are set in motion, neither realising just how closely tied their predetermined purposes truly are._

_The formative years of two young friends so close that they consider themselves brothers in all but blood, whose lives lie mapped out before them in more ways than they know, nor would ever want to. _

**Characters:**_ Balinor, Uther, Nimueh, Gaius and Kilgarrah. With a smattering of Hunith, Ygraine, Vivienne, Gorlois and Tristan du Bois for good measure._

**Rated: T**_, for violence, blood, mild sexual references, copious amounts of mild bad language, obscure british profanity and insults, and poor attempts at occasional humour._

**AN:** _This has been bounding about in my head for some time now. Particularly these two boys. I had to let them out, so this is being written for the sake of detox. None the less, I hope it is enjoyed as much as I'm enjoying writing it and watching the character development along the way. This is written almost as a collection of small, self-contained stories that follow on from one another. Almost... episodic. As though it were based on a television series, one might say... ha! The first two chapters I've posted together, as they work better as an introduction to this story together. So without further ado, read on and have a good time!_

* * *

- One -

* * *

It was warm. So very warm. Probably sunny outside, judging by the glorious light on his closed eyelids. A good day for training.

Camelot's crown prince yawned and turned onto his back to stretch out beneath the heavy covers. He could get up, but why just yet when such a warm, and fluffy bed had hold of you? He squeezed his eyes more tightly shut, and gave another yawn. Training could wait just a little longer. Squirming back onto his side, he pulled at the blankets intent on rolling himself up in them and drifting back into dreamland. Only...

He tugged at them. They wouldn't move. He tugged them a little harder, rolled his shoulder against them and hauled. They moved a little bit, but not as much as he demanded, and not silently. A sound – 'Mmrph', to be exact – and a light sigh from behind him had him frowning in confusion. That was far from right...

He opened his eyes and turned over, coming face to face with a sight he was convinced that no one in their right mind would ever want to see first thing in the morning. Ever.

A tangled mess of dark hair, one over-large, totally ridiculous ear, and a gaping, snoring maw. All belonging to a tall, lanky body sprawled out on the top of his covers. HIS covers. Just lying there. Not a care in the world. One arm thrown casually behind its head, on its back, reclined like lord of the bloody realm. Still wearing its damn boots for heaven's sakes! Just there, on the crown prince's bed, without care or consideration for the fact that not only was this highly improper, but also that said prince might want his damn blankets. Idiot!

So it was understandable when one irritated, or more accurately fuming royal sat up, snatched his own pillow and brought it down with a force and an audible 'whump!' onto the snoring peasant's stupid, sleeping face.

"Balinor! What the hell are you doing!?"

"Uh?" Balinor frowned, but did not bother to open his eyes. Instead he shrugged his shoulders against the comfy blankets and settled once more. "M'sleeping. Whatsit look like?"

"Not here you're not. Now sod off out of my bed!"

At that, Balinor did open his eyes, surprisingly quickly and alertly for someone who had been sleeping soundly but a moment before. Seeing the rich canopy above him, he blinked, and propped himself up on one elbow to find himself looking up into the red and disconcertingly tooth-grinding face of prince Uther. "Oh."

Uther nodded slowly. "Indeed." He said in a reassuringly flat tone. "Oh."

To his chagrin, Balinor did not make any move to get up. In fact, the irritating serf looked remarkably unaffected by all of this.

Couldn't have hit him hard enough with the pillow, clearly.

Lazily, Balinor rubbed at his eyes, dropped his hand to the mattress and winced. "How much did we have to drink last night?"

Uther's petulant rage ebbed. He huffed all the air from his lungs and collapsed back to his bed raising his hands to grind the heels into his closed eyes. "Too much."

"Sounds about right." Balinor collapsed beside him and stared up at the canopy. He yawned and swiped a hand across his forehead to push his fringe away from his eyes. "What am I doing here again?"

"Search me." Uther groaned and shook his head lightly. It was always a mistake to go to the tavern after winning a tourney. Always. Why did he keep doing it?

He was about to put his question to Balinor when he glanced over and noted the tell-tale fly catching open gob and closed eyes that preluded loud snoring. Snarling, he recalled that he was currently enraged with this fool, and elbowed him sharply in the ribs. "Get out of my bed, twat!"

"Not in your bed!" Balinor shot back, a yawn breaking up his words. He flipped onto his side facing Uther and jabbed a long finger rather viciously at the mattress several times in quick succession. "I'm on it. There's a difference."

"Get out!"

"M'going." He threw his legs over the edge of the bed, nearly falling in his haste to comply. "Miserable git."

Uther snorted, no longer able to hide his underlying mirth. For someone so pathetically weak-looking, insults always sounded incredibly deadly in Balinor's perpetually surly tone and rough accent. It was probably the only thing the prince actually envied him. About to throw his pillow at the stretching idiot's back to see if he could get any more insults out of him, Uther found himself interrupted by a knock at the door. Before he could say 'enter' in his most princely granting voice, he was rudely cut off-

"Hm?"

By definition of that utterly thoughtless answer, Balinor was once again overstepping his bounds. Granting access to the prince's chambers was a new one. Uther made a mental note to find some privilege particular to Balinor to destroy later and turned his attention to the person stepping through the door.

It was Edmund, his manservant. To his credit the man seemed thoroughly unphased to find Balinor in full stretch in the middle of the prince's chambers. That fact alone caused Uther to bump the privilege destroying nearer the top of his mental 'to do' list for the day.

As was part of his job, Edmund simply ignored anything that may venture into the realms of questioning his master and proceeded to set the prince's breakfast on the table. Neither did he question it when Balinor ambled gracelessly (stumble-walking, the prince had apparently been heard to name the boy's unique gait) across the room and begin picking at the spread. That was quite normal. Edmund had started to add a little extra to the meals to compensate.

Any thoughts of sleeping in well and truly fled, Uther kicked back his covers and dashed across the room on bare feet to more or less body slam Balinor aside and seize his breakfast before the best could be eaten.

As with most things, the physical violence didn't seem to affect Balinor in the least. The boy just huffed as though inconvenienced and pulled out a chair from the table to crumble into. Moaning softly, he propped his elbows on his knees and clutched his head in his hands. Uther was apparently none the worse for wear after all that they had drunk the previous night. Memory was hazy, but it was likely a lot. Uther always got very generous with his gold when he won a tournament, and insisted on buying rounds for the whole tavern until closing time. He also insisted on everyone keeping up with his own alcohol consumption so he didn't have to wait for the next round. Generosity apparently cured all ills in terms of a personality. He didn't realise that forcing the population of the Rising Sun to keep up with a teenager who drank so damn fast that he couldn't possibly taste what he threw down his throat was hardly a courtesy. Not everyone could handle ale without ill effect.

Balinor recognised himself as one of those people. Uther either didn't notice the raging hangovers that afflicted his friend without fail every morning following a night at the tavern, or he didn't care. Grutnol could deal with ale better, being bigger. It was just natural that it wouldn't affect him so much. Didn't stop Balinor wishing all manner of nasty on him, and his ability to inhale food faster than lightning. Why did the morning after always have to hold the joys of drunk-hunger? The affliction that caused one to feel sick as a dog, yet be absolutely bloody starving all the same? What's more, why wasn't Uther suffering with it? It wasn't fair.

Could get food later, Balinor supposed, squeezing his eyes shut. By the time later rolled around, and after a thousand cups of water and a remedy from Gaius, the room may have stopped lilting. By which point he probably wouldn't even be hungry any more. The point he was trying to grasp and impress upon himself was the fact that he _could_ get food later. He no longer had to live hand to mouth, as Uther kept reminding him when he did something particularly lowly.

Though the guffawing tosser had yet to let the peasant thing drop. He thought it was an insult. Ah well. Wasn't the prince's fault that fact-stating and insults got mixed up in the thick heads of nobility. Balinor huffed again, purely to himself this time. His wasn't to reason why, but to sit quietly in a chair and not be bothered by the problems of the high-born.

That mental attitude was probably why Uther described him to everyone as 'so laid back he's practically dead'. Nothing wrong with that. Being laid back just meant that he may manage a quiet life, and his hair would go grey later. At least it wasn't receding. Mentioning the 'R' word had made Uther so angry that he had chased Balinor around the citadel with a sword, but it had been worth it for the red face and teeth-gnashing. Angry Uther was always good for a laugh.

Something hit him in the forehead and ricocheted away to the floor near the window. "Ow."

That reaction made Uther grin. Naturally, it also made him throw another grape. That Balinor didn't even try and avoid it, just closed his eyes and let it hit him in the face, made Uther chortle. He had never met someone so passive in his entire life. Throwing things at passive people was always more entertaining than throwing them at people who gave a damn.

"What've I done now?" Balinor asked with a resigned, breathy sigh. "Something? Or this just you being a weasel?"

"A man is entitled to that which makes him happy." Uther returned matter of factly, and threw another grape.

Balinor shook his head against the light, but still annoying impact and frowned at his pompous, stuck-up, utterly juvenile friend. "That in your case is throwing grapes?"

"Not just throwing grapes."

"No?"

Another grape sliced through the air to bounce off the top of Balinor's truly ridiculous and very unfashionable outside the fields bowl cut, Uther giving a sardonic smile to see it land squarely in his pet moron's lap. "Throwing grapes at you." He threw another, face twisting in annoyance to see it halt in mid air before Balinor's nose where it would have struck him right between his flashing gold eyes. His annoyance only grew when, with a muttered word, the grape flew back and hit him in the cheek.

In retaliation, Uther threw another. Balinor dodged aside, out of it's path, though remained seated. "Stop it."

The prince did not listen and threw another, which also missed. Balinor's frown deepened. "Said stop."

Still not listening, the next missed its target also.

"Stop chucking things at me, Uther."

Not about to be ordered around by a serf, Uther grabbed an entire handful of the things and hurled them all straight at Balinor.

All of this Edmund watched from his position near the wall where he breathed a quiet, almost internal sigh at the thought of having to pick up all those grapes. Oh well.

None of the barrage hit, all stopping mid hurl as Balinor raised his hand, "_Oflinn!*_" and lowered his head. "_F__ý__son gewider!*_" The grape hail sprang back the way it had come, an edible attack on the prince of Camelot that flew in every direction, one or two hitting Edmund who graciously did not react. The majority hit Uther, despite the totally chaotic manner of their flight, to a wave of varying sounds of outrage from the prince.

It was _probably_ a bad idea, to be fair, Balinor realised just before the grapes pelted their cringing target. That it was _certainly_ a bad idea became known to him as Uther lunged for him, snarling.

The hungover sorcerer threw himself out of his chair, accidentally knocking it over with a crash and made a run for it around the edge of the room, Uther in hot pursuit.

"No!"

He made a dash for the bed in the hopes of springing across it and using it as a shield. The prince managed to grab one of his ankles and trip him up on top of it. Really it was silly of Balinor to try and spring anywhere. People as clumsy as him couldn't spring anywhere anyway, let alone under pressure, so he wasn't as annoyed as he should be when his plan failed. Instead he did the only logical thing in the situation. He snatched up one of the pillows and proceeded to beat Uther around the head with it.

The tactic held the howling prince off for all of a moment before he clawed his way past it and after Balinor onto the floor on the far side of the bed where he landed on top of the stupid warlock and bent one of those skinny arms up behind the idiot's back until he begged for mercy. At which point, Uther chivalrously released him. It was never good to hear a man whine like a child, even if he could not yet really be called a man.

His chivalry was rewarded with a trip to the ground as the blankets leapt from the bed at Balinor's behest and wound themselves around his ankles.

He landed on the floor beside his scruffy victim, both of them unable to do anything more than lie there panting. After a moment, Uther shot a venomous glare at his companion. No matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn't maintain it. Rather than suffer the indignity of dissolving into giggles, he turned onto his front, folded his arms on the ground and buried his face in them that only a mop of golden hair remained of his regal countenance. "Idiot."

"Ass." Balinor growled back, still sprawled on his back.

"How dare you throw things at me."

"You started it."

"Shut up."

"You can't tell me what to do."

"I'm a prince."

"I'm a dirty, uneducated peasant."

"So you have to do what I say."

"Don't _own_ me. Not from Camelot."

"Still have to do what I say."

"Don't talk to strangers. Can't do what they say if I don't talk to them."

"Shut up. Fool."

"Idle lusk."

"Twat."

"Doddipol."

Uther did not retaliate further. He pushed himself to stand instead, and pulled Balinor up by his shoulders, laughing. "What kind of idiot are you?" To punctuate the affection in his words and tone, he punched Balinor in the shoulder.

Rhetorical the question may be, but it was damn well getting an answer after that. "The kind that wishes the damn ugly prince would stop punching him."

Uther grunted, slapped him on the back and gripped his shoulder. "You love it. If you didn't, you wouldn't put up with it."

That was true. While getting shoved and punched was hardly Balinor's idea of being friendly, it _was_ Uther's. That the prince attacked him at all showed friendship, perverse as that may be to acknowledge. To be totally truthful, Balinor knew that he would miss it if it stopped. Getting punched so many times must have flipped his brain.

Uther released him, and headed back to the table to finish his breakfast. "Probably shouldn't bruise you too much." He mused aloud. "Can't have you standing there looking like a turnip when we greet Godwyn today. Most unbecoming it would be."

Balinor screwed up his face and breathed a put upon sigh. Ah. Yes. That. "Why do I have to be there again?"

Uther shot him a glance begging him not to be so damn stupid. "As son of Camelot's resident dragonlord you _have_ to be there. The same as I _have_ to. Part of living in the citadel, and part of being a member of the court. You can't have your cake and eat it, Balinor. Privilege isn't free."

At that little lecture, Balinor collapsed onto his back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. "Nothing's free, apparently. Except what we scrumped back in the village. That was free."

That was yet another of those things that princes charged with upholding laws shouldn't know. Uther said nothing on the subject, instead choosing to tuck into his grapes rather than throw them about. He cast a glance at his friend, finding him unmoving and apparently comfortable. Balinor's enthusiasm for meeting the great and the good was less than marked, Uther knew. His pet peasant had very little respect for titles and etiquette. While that often disgusted the prince no end, he could not blame Balinor for his aversion to being paraded in front of visiting royalty. Maybe one day the intricacies of court would be truly appealing to the fool, but today was clearly not that day. At present, Uther actually found _himself_ dreading the afternoon's reception.

Godwyn was quite the King, and Uther was interested to meet and talk with him about the various battles he had taken part in, but before all of that, there was the traditional reception to get through. Standing around outside listening to speeches and watching people shake hands and exchange formal greetings was exceedingly boring. It was too nice a day for that sort of thing. He could spend it training the knights, or perhaps he could go hunting. If he were to do the latter, he would have to leave Balinor behind, and put effort into sneaking out of the city without the warlock knowing, otherwise he would be followed and the sport ruined. Balinor had some problem with hunting that drove him to sabotage it whenever he learned that Uther was out trying to enjoy it. Invariably at some point during each and every hunt Balinor would come crashing through the bushes making as much noise as possible, or scramble up trees thinking himself invisible and proceed to use magic to frighten away the game. He would lament anything Uther actually managed to kill despite his best efforts and ruin the prince's triumph. Somehow, he could actually make Uther feel guilty about his kills.

It was something to do with a magical connection to the very Earth itself, or something bizarre and sorcerous that compelled him to be such a pain in the arse. Made the man dislike killing even a rabbit unless it was with the full intention of eating it and 'restoring the balance' or some such drivel. It wasn't even like Uther could order him to get lost and leave the game alone. Balinor was not his servant, neither was he even really one of his citizens. The fool enjoyed wheeling that one out whenever the will to defy the prince reared up. In a fit of childish rage Uther had briefly considered penning a letter to King Eldred of Essetir asking that he hand over sovereignty of Balinor as a subject to Camelot just to spite the stupid peasant. It wasn't like Uther was asking for the whole bloody village. Just one person. His father had convinced him that to do so would be a step too far in the game of one-upmanship the boys had going on, and he had decided to leave it. Though sometimes it was sorely tempting...

His mind wandered back to the reception that afternoon. He had been trained since the day he was born to one day become King and take over his father's kingdom. The correct way to behave whilst engaging in relations with the kingdom's allies was ingrained into his very bones he had been drilled on it so often. This was hardly the first reception he had attended, and it may not even be the most boring. It was still going to be boring, no doubt about that, and he would still much rather go hunting or train than attend, but it was his duty to be there. His fate was mapped out, as Balinor's was for him also.

Until His grandfather had died a year ago, Balinor had lived in Engerd, a small village just the other side of the border with Essetir, with his father. Filthy peasants they may have been (and they didn't come much more filthy than Balinor, Uther imagined), but from their earliest years both Balinor and his father had learnt their heritage, and an understanding of the sacred duty they would one day inherit. It was hard to believe looking at him, but one day Balinor would be a Dragonlord. The great creatures would bow down to him and do his bidding, as was his birthright.

Neither of them, prince or potential Dragonlord had any control over what they were born to one day be, nor would either of them change it should they have the chance. The outcome of being born a prince was fine by Uther. One day Camelot would be his, and he was well aware that he would be the greatest ruler the five kingdoms had ever seen. Greater even than Bruta. King Uther Pendragon ruling justly and fairly, with unparalleled strength and his faithful Dragonlord Balinor at his side. Together they would be unstoppable. Nobody would dare oppose them and threaten Camelot.

Two years ago Uther had put very little stock in having a Dragonlord at his disposal. Why did he need dragons? His army was going to be the best, no man would match him for swordsmanship, Camelot would be the envy of all the lands. A Dragonlord was just a court tradition that could be scrapped along with the stuffier aspects of court life. Then he had encountered Balinor, and everything had changed.

At first he had been outraged, and more than a little disgusted, by the gangly, ridiculous-looking peasant who had refused to get out of his path as every other nobody did, electing instead to tell the prince in no uncertain terms to go around _him_.

The plain fact that it was sensible, and easier for Uther to go around him was neither here nor there. It didn't matter that Balinor had been labouring under armfuls of rather heavy supplies from the market. The point was that he was a peasant, Uther was a prince, there was an order to things and the ignorant little louse trap was not adhering to it.

So Uther had acted as any well-respected, just and fair future king would, and punched him in the face. After the initial round of pointing and laughing at the wet peasant collapsed in a particularly large puddle of mud in the middle of the road, Balinor had presumably gotten fed up and waited for the prince to mount his horse before using magic to spook the damn creature that it reared and deposited Uther in the same puddle in an unprincely heap.

It was a testament to Balinor's patience that it took as long as it did to get to that point, but they started fighting. Just dove at each other in a real screaming, swearing, pathetic, close quarters punching to the ribs, hair-pulling fight. They had only stopped trying to scratch each other to bits when the guards stationed nearby waded in, forcibly pulled them apart and tossed Balinor into the dungeons, and Uther into his chambers.

Even then he had raged on about how he wanted to continue beating the muddy peasant into submission. His father hadn't been much pleased about that. Constantine had a very strange idea of morality, respect and justice. He knew that Uther had started the fight, but was also well aware that Balinor had been insistent on finishing it. Therefore, as they were both as guilty as each other, they would share the same punishment. One afternoon, side by side, in the stocks. All assurance given to the general public that no retribution would be sought by the famously hot-tempered prince after the fact, and that he was to be treated no differently to any other criminal/idiot under punishment.

So prince Uther and the irritatingly calm peasant (who seemed to be rather enjoying himself) spent the first afternoon in one another's company being pelted by rotten vegetables and handfuls of mud.

After the initial outrage and spouting of abject hatred and vicious insults, Uther had eventually quietened down and relaxed a little. The two of them had started talking, and actually laughing about the absurdity of their situation. By the time to guards arrived to release them, it was to find both boys actively egging on the crowd to do their worst with the manky fruit and slop, big grins on their faces.

Uther couldn't help but smile at the memory. It was not the most orthodox first meeting of himself and one of his friends, but it was by far the most memorable, and the most fun. They weren't immediately friends, but after several more visits to the stocks for fighting - 'You come here often?' 'Shut up' - and a speight confined to opposite ends of the citadel (for it was with great surprise that Uther learned Balinor actually lived in the castle), they somehow became inseparable. Balinor, the big-eared idiot had become Uther's constant companion and confidante. Though they still fought, and curiously Balinor never used magic to escape or win. The fool would normally leave fighting to the last option, even in self-defence. It was always Uther who started the fights, and it was only he who could get 'so passive he's hardly there' Balinor to want to finish them.

Edmund was poking about in the wardrobe looking out the prince's clothing for the day. Everyone had an opinion on the strange friendship that had struck up between the two boys. Even to the neglect of others Uther had held beforehand. If one was to ask the prince where his former friends were, he unlikely would be able to tell you. Most of them had gravitated away of their own accord once they realised that he was serious about calling the scruffy peasant his friend. They refused to associate with Balinor, as was their right as nobility.

The dispersal of Uther's previous inner circle had many of the older generations of Camelot's nobility worried. They feared that their families would lose favour once the prince rose to power, now that he no longer spent all his time socialising with and terrorising the populace with their offspring.

Really he couldn't see what the problem was. Balinor would one day be a lord. A dragonlord, maybe, so not a lord in the classical sense, but he would still hold a title. Why should it matter that he was a favourite – the favourite – of the Prince?

Personally, Edmund was unaffected by the friendship beyond adding to the prince's meals to cater for Balinor's insistent and casual theft. Really Edmund was glad to see him pinching food from Uther. The boy needed to eat more by the looks of him, and Edmund truly did care about the youngster's welfare. Not only had Balinor's presence done Uther a world of good (perhaps it was difficult to see for those who did not know him, but the prince had mellowed considerably from the way he had been, and become much less violent as he grew more aware of his actions having consequences in causing Balinor real accidental pain when he put effort into attacking him), but he was a rather pleasant boy in himself. When he wasn't with Uther, or working, he often spent time below stairs in the servants' area of the citadel. More than once Edmund had strode into the kitchen to find him sitting on one of the workbenches tucking into an apple, or bun, regaling the staff with stories and tales he had picked up. He was well-travelled for a boy of his age, and therefore had seen some strange things. Not only that, but he was... odd, in some respects. Namely magic. His knowledge of magical creatures was wide and varied, and he could wax lyrical about them for hours. He had a way about him, that made his words enthralling. Perhaps it was the way he told his tales, but Edmund had found himself running late in his duties on occasion when he had stopped to listen. Also he possessed a mental library of limericks that could turn the cheeks of even the most experienced of courtesans red.

On a more mercenary level, Uther now threw everything that had once been directed at Edmund at Balinor, so that was a plus in itself.

Across the room, Uther was about to fling a roll at Balinor to ensure that he was not asleep, when the serf shoved himself to stand of his own accord and stretch his arms over his head.

"I'll see you later, I suppose." Balinor mewled, fighting against a yawn.

Uther frowned, though in all it was closer to pouting. "What? Where are you going?"

"Godwyn's not arriving until this afternoon. There's a few hours spare between then and now, so I'm going to try and enjoy them."

"On your own?" Clearly the concept was alien to Uther.

Balinor rolled his eyes. "Yes. Not everyone needs an audience at all hours of the day. And personally I can't be arsed to stand here watching someone dress you, so I'm off."

"To do what?" Uther scoffed. "Pick lovely wildflowers? Cavort with bunnies? Or just ruin some poor man's hunt? You're a pathetic excuse for a man. Come train with the knights and I."

"Hm." Balinor tapped a finger against his lips and cradled his chin, his face a caricature of deep and careful thought. "Cavort with bunnies, or get my head staved in by thick-witted idiots? I'll take the bunnies, thanks."

"Watch your tongue, Balinor." The prince was wearing his very-not-amused face. The one that looked like a cow chewing thoughtfully on a wasp, or a bucket of sour milk. There were areas of stone wall more intimidating and interesting.

"I know where my tongue is." Balinor returned casually. "You can't not, when you can feel it at all times when it's in your mouth."

Uther huffed, about to tell his idiot to shut his face, when he paused and found himself rubbing his tongue along the back of his upper teeth in a fit of strange, experimental curiousity. "... Damn you. How do you know these things?"

Balinor gave a broad, smile, and raised both eyebrows in satisfaction. "On that note I'm going to find some breakfast."

He bid prince and manservant adieu and stumbled out of the room, aware of some unsavoury insult or other being muttered by Uther behind him. For once he was too hungover to care let alone think of a retort, so he went on his way. He did have the wherewithal to leave the chamber door propped open that the passing maids would get an eye full of a half-naked Uther, knowing that they would spread talk of it all around the citadel by lunch and annoy the prince thoroughly. Also, judging by the tirade directed at him from the prince's chamber, Uther had noticed what he had done, which was a plus. The jumped up twat needed his head messing with to stop it swelling so much sometimes.

Balinor paused at the end of the corridor and pressed a hand to his belly. Why did they have to drink so much? He felt queasy – sea sick standing on dry land. As if on cue, he burped and slapped a hand over his mouth. Breakfast could wait. Maybe enjoying his spare hours should have read as sitting quietly on his bed trying not to make any sudden moves?

So instead of heading to his father's chambers, he changed direction and stumbled down the steps to cross the courtyard en route to his own home. At least there no one would see his shame if his stomach lining decided to pop up and say hello.

* * *

*_Oflinn! - Stop!_

_*F__ý__son gewider! - Fly forth everywhere!_

**_*Notes: _**_Though Balinor never openly uses magic beyond his healing 'prayer' for Arthur in 'The last Dragonlord', he more or less admits he has magic with the line to Merlin 'You have your father's talents', or similar.  
_

_Foreshadowing. Foreshadowing everywhere._


	2. I: Chapter II

Two -

* * *

People were always up so early when there were guests coming. Servants fetching and carrying scurried back and forth, nobility rushed to get whatever they did done before it was time. Balinor wandered along close to the wall, fingers groping along its cool stone surface as he endeavoured to stay out of the way. His stomach rebelled violently with every step. Not for the first time he questioned his wisdom in going to the tavern with Uther. Also what on Earth possessed him to try and keep up with the ale consumption? He told Uther to sod off in all but that. Why? Was he just a masochist when it came to alcohol? Or was it his male pride? Here he hadn't thought that all the jibes about fluffy bunnies and petting baby dragons had had any effect.

Bugger.

He had just made it to the griffin staircase when somebody turned the corner sharply and walked straight into his chest. Hardly steady on his feet, the jolt sent him careening against the wall. So used to falling about like a rag doll was he that he recovered well and glanced round quickly to ensure that the other party had fared as well.

His face fell as he recognised her, and he quickly straightened and inclined his head respectfully.

"My Lady! I am sorry."

Nimueh stared back at him with wide, very blue eyes, one hand raised to her chest in surprise at their collision. Finding this strange apparition of teenage boyhood offering her a clumsy bow, she smiled and shook her head lightly. "There is no need for that."

Balinor hesitated, unsure what exactly to do, but straightened to find himself blinking down at her.

Until then, he had not seen Nimueh up close. He had caught sight of the young priestess from afar during court gatherings, but naturally he had been distracted by ensuring Uther's good behaviour. She had paid little attention to him, he imagined. She was normally preoccupied laughing with the nobility, or shadowing her mistress to care about who may be watching her from across the hall.

He had thought her lovely, and found himself very much enamoured with her curvaceous figure as young men were wont to be, but up close he could see just how beautiful she truly was. With those red lips, porcelain skin and eyes so blue as he had never seen, her lovely face framed by a fall of rich dark hair interwoven with red and blue ribbons, she was an ethereal beauty unlike any he had seen before.

He cursed himself, feeling flushed. The tips of his ears were turning red where they poked out of his hair. They must be. Oh... sod it.

"..." He shocked himself into action, and bobbed his head subserviently. "Forgive my clumsiness, my Lady." He said, knowing even as he spoke that the words were turning his skin even more red. "I didn't mean to walk into you. I'm an oaf."

Nimueh's smile grew at his phraseology, lips parting to reveal bright white teeth. "Not at all, young Dragonlord. It was I who walked into you."

"Yet it is normally the other way around when these things happen."

"Do they happen often?" She inquired, amused.

Balinor tilted his head. "Remarkably so. If you are insistent on taking the blame for this incident, then let my apology be pre-emptive, as it will likely happen again, and be my fault."

"Then I will." She held her hand out to him. "I am aware of who you are, as undoubtedly you are I. But I do not believe we have had the pleasure?"

He took her hand, and to her surprise, shook it firmly. "Balinor." He told her with an utterly earnest expression on his young face that she found quite endearing. "Far flung future Dragonlord to Camelot, if they do not banish me for public menace first."

Nimueh smirked, trying to contain her amusement at the rough, yet strangely charming peasant boy before her. "Nimueh. Priestess of the Triple Goddess and apprentice to High Priestess Nyneve." To his astonishment and surprise, she curtseyed. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Lord Balinor."

"I'm not a Lord." He returned quickly, feeling himself fluster. "Just an idiot."

…Why did he have to say that?

Nimueh gave a light chuckle, as though unsure what to do with him. "You are of the Dragonlord line. It does not matter that you have yet to come into your gifts. The same respect is afforded to all of your noble people."

Balinor paused, and considered her carefully, his head cocked to one side. She spoke with such a lofty tone and manner, yet she could be no older than he was himself. Not yet eighteen, he supposed. She did not project the image of a young girl with her words, and to hear her speak like one much older than she was seemed strange.

"Is something the matter?" She queried with a smile, observing the way he stared at her.

"Uh?" He snapped out of it and shook his head quickly. "No. Sorry. I was... you have very blue eyes." He blurted out and immediately despaired of himself. What kind of idiot was he?

To his surprise Nimueh drew back from him in what appeared to be alarm, pulling her hand from his as though burned.

His queasy stomach clenched. "Did I say something wrong?" He ventured tentatively. "I haven't offended you, have I?"

"You..." Nimueh trailed off, and narrowed her eyes on him in careful scrutiny. "You have magic?"

Balinor nodded. "Mm," and held out his hand. "_L__í__gel__é__oht __͌__._"

A bright flame flickered into existence in his palm, swaying gently in the light breeze from the open windows.

Nimueh peered at it in surprise, a look of absolute wonder flourishing on her face as he idly tilted his hand to send the flame cascading like glowing water down into his other palm, doing the same with that hand to send it back its place of origin. It obeyed without question or resistance, changing shape as he bade it, brightening with each movement and dimming with each still. Her expression and surprise confused him.

"Why is that unusual?"

"It is rare for Dragonlords to possess magic." She murmured, reaching out careful, delicate fingers to twirl through the beautiful flame. "Their art is close to magic, but to have both is rare indeed." She raised her eyes to look at him, finding his face completely void of comprehension. "And your magic is powerful."

"Not sure about that."

"It is." She insisted, becoming animated suddenly as some of her gravitas fell away to leave a sort of girlish excitement. "You said that I have blue eyes."

He gave a decisive nod. "You do."

"You should not be aware of that." She made as if to grab his arm but fell short, leaving her gazing up at him as though marvelling at her discovery of him. "There is a glamour upon me, yet you can see through it. You can see me."

"Of course I can."

"You misunderstand." All pretence of loftiness had dropped from her voice, betraying just how young she really was. "It is traditional for apprentice priestesses to conceal their true faces behind a glamour that we may study away from the Isle of the Blessed without drawing... disapproved attention to ourselves. You see through the illusion." She grinned, and clapped her hands together to hold them clasped in front of her chest. "To be able to do so takes powerful magic, and very great control. Where did you learn? Under whom did you study?"

Balinor drew back from her a little, a confused frown on his face. Where did he learn? Who taught him? "Nobody." He answered bluntly, "Not to do things like this." He nodded to the still brightly flickering flame in his hand. "I learnt how to control it through reading books. Before that, I don't really know. Not even sure where it came from. Just started happening when I hit fourteen summers."

He held out his palm and concentrated on the flame therein. It leapt a few inches from his hand into the air, and formed itself into a dragon, flapped its wings and bent its elegant neck, and faded away.

"How did you do that?" Nimueh demanded, shocked to her core. He had not said a word!

Balinor's frown deepened as he looked back at her, wondering if she were perhaps a little unhinged. That she found any interest in him, thought anything about him exceptional was completely incomprehensible to him. "Incanted a spell in my head." She was meant to be a priestess. Didn't she know?

Nimueh shook her head and took a quiet breath to calm herself. "Balinor. Only the most skilled sorcerers can perform magic of that sort." She told him gently. "It takes years of diligent study to master it. Yet you say that is what you did just now?"

Uncertain, he nodded.

She took his arm, holding it lightly, almost reverently. "How long have you practiced magic?"

"Don't really 'practice' it, but... four years?" That was about right, wasn't it? Nearly four years. Four years when he hit eighteen.

"Four years?" Her voice was a breathy whisper. "That is... amazing."

"Not really." The thought of anything about him being amazing made his head ache all over again.

"Nyneve will not be able to believe this."

His back straightened, shoulders tensed. "Does she have to know?"

Nimueh blinked, appearing for all the world as though his question was simply insane. "Yes! Of course she does."

"Why?"

She faltered. "Why? What do you mean why?"

Balinor gave a careful shrug, aware that it was going to cause his head to bang again if he was careless in the movement. "Why does she have to know? What good will it do?"

Nimueh opened her mouth to say something, but let it snap shut a moment later.

Balinor went on, "It's not like I do anything with it. Sometimes use it to carry heavy things when my arms are tired, or light candles across the room when I don't want to get up to do it. That's it."

The look on her face was one of somebody utterly knocked back and unable to believe what she was hearing. "You have great power, and you see no use for it?" She shook her head. "Balinor, you could do so much. Conjure flame, and creatures to do your bidding. Speak with the dead, if you focused your power-"

"Why?"

That simple question asked in so innocent a voice left her silent. Balinor went on, brows drawn together as he struggled to put his point across without sounding like a fool. "Why would I want to do any of that? What use would I have for it?"

"What use?"

"I have no need to do those things, and I don't want to."

Nimueh was unsure of the logic behind such an answer. "Why not?" After all, surely the purpose in such things was the simple fact that one could exercise their power to do them in the first place?

The peasant boy shrugged at her question. "What would a serf have need of a conjured creature for? What would he have to say to the dead, but bore them to tears with the inanity of his day? They would be better off staying in Avalon, than having to suffer commentary on _my_ life."

Despite herself, Nimueh smiled at that. She had not thought of it that way.

Balinor shook his head lightly and gently drew his arm away as not to upset or offend her in any way. "I'm going to be a Dragonlord one day." He told her quietly, softly, as though he would disappoint her with his words. "That is a sacred duty that will change my life beyond measure. Until that day comes, I just want to live my life and be what I am now."

"And what is that?" She asked, a small smile twitching her lips.

"Gormless, and a bit irresponsible."

"That is why you reek of ale?"

He winced. Was it so noticeable? "Yes. That's reckless irresponsibility for you."

"And that is the kind of man you want to be?" The girlish excitement had left her voice, replaced by the lofty tone of a priestess once more. "Drunk and foolish?"

"I'm not a man, yet." Balinor told her evenly. "Just as you are not a woman yet. When the day comes that I am no longer a boy, I will be the man I am already decided to be. Until then-" He pressed a hand to his temple and blinked, "-I need a long drink of water and a lie down."

Beneath the frosty, untouchable exterior of a priestess, Nimueh's resolve crumbled, and she stepped aside from his path with a smile. "I see. Very well, Balinor. Until the day you become a man, then."

He glanced at her with a light frown. "You're not going to tell Nyneve about me?"

She shrugged her slight shoulders and brushed a stray strand of hair from her cheek. "It is not my news to tell."

He returned her smile, kind and grateful, and inclined his head. "My thanks, my Lady."

She gathered her skirts in one hand and curtseyed with all the grace and deference of a noble lady to a king. "And mine, my foolish, drunken Dragonlord."

That left him confused. "Beg pardon?" Why was she thanking him?

"For making my morning interesting." With that, she turned and began to walk away along the corridor. "'Til the next time, Balinor the serf."

Thoughtful, he watched her go a moment before his stomach roiled uncomfortably. Muffling a groan, he made his shaky way down the stairs to the courtyard.

She must have gotten confused somewhere, in regards to magic and Dragonlords. Though, now that he thought about it, his father didn't have magic. Neither did his grandfather, from what he could recall...

* * *

The chambers were empty. On the one hand, that was a relief. Nobody was around to see him make the walk of shame, while on the other there was nobody around to throw headache treatments at him.

Still, just in case, Balinor very carefully closed the door behind him and attempted to steal across the room for the short set of steps up to his private chambers beyond.

"Ah! Still alive, I see."

That slightly scornful voice stopped him in his tracks, making him appear a little like a comical bandit caught in the act in the position he stood in, actively cringing.

Across the chambers, a fair head poked out of the broom cupboards, one eyebrow raised in terrible judgement, "Remarkably free of vegetable residue, too."

Balinor deflated, his shoulders sagging as he felt all chance of reaching his bed fade away. "Good morning, Gaius."

The court physician emerged from the cupboard brandishing a broom. "Where have you been? Your bed hasn't been slept in, you look the wrong end of a boar and you positively reek of ale."

"You wouldn't be the first to point that out this morning."

"Have you been in the tavern again?"

"..." Oh, for a believable lie! Unfortunately this was Gaius, master of transparent excuse detection. The lack of an answer was exactly what the man had expected apparently. Gaius threw his hands up in the air, nearly losing the broom over his shoulder. "What am I going to do with you?! The whole point of taking on an assistant was to have somebody to _assist_ me! If anything, since you arrived my workload has actually increased. Look at the state of this place! The leech tank is filthy, my yarrow, rosemary and fever few stocks have run out completely, and none of my instruments from yesterday's rounds have been cleaned. What am I even paying you for?"

"S'not my fault." Balinor replied quickly, annoyed with himself for sounding like a naughty child as he did. "Uther asked me-"

"If Uther asked you to walk off a cliff would you do it?!"

Balinor blinked, Gaius already huffing in despair of him even as he opened his mouth to answer.

"Oh, never mind!" Gaius cut him off, and fixed him with an unforgiving stare. "You're back now, I suppose, so you can make it up to me by catching up with as much as you can before the reception this afternoon." He thrust the broom at Balinor, "Here."

With an audible groan, Balinor took the broom and set to work. His bed hadn't just faded from his mind. The very notion of it had collapsed, burst into flames and been put out with a localised rainstorm. Weakly, he began sweeping at the floor under a critical gaze from Gaius.

It took a few moments for the physician to be satisfied before the man gave a nod and made for the workbench to pick up his medical bag and head for the door. He called back over his shoulder as he went, "This floor at least had better be finished by the time I return. If not, then you and I are going to have words. Your father and I also."

Balinor shook his head and put a little more effort into his sweeping. "That's not necessary." He blurted. "I don't think that we need to bring him into this."

"Yes. Well." Gaius said no more on it, slinging his bag over his shoulder and pulling the door open.

"Where are you going?" Balinor called after him.

"On my rounds." The look Gaius threw him was pointed to say the least. "Rounds that would be much more effective had I an adequate supply of fever few."

Balinor lowered his eyes to the floor, sheepish. "Oh. Right."

"Indeed." Gaius huffed, and turned to close the door after him. "And remember. Floor."

The door banged shut and he was gone.

Balinor continued sweeping for a few moments longer before pausing and straining his ears to the corridor beyond. Satisfied that Gaius was well gone and not about to come back, he took a breath and straightened from his lean on the broom.

The entire room was a state. Gaius had gotten somewhat lazy since receiving the assistant he had so sorely needed. An assistant who currently had neither the energy nor the inclination to tackle the mess.

Balinor picked up the broom and tossed it towards the centre of the chambers. Before it hit the ground he outstretched his hand, "_Á__sw__á__pan __͋_."

The broom landed bristles down and immediately began sweeping of its own volition with a flash of golden irises from Balinor, who left it get on with it. He turned his attention on the workbench, and muck-caked mortars there. Gaius kept a blunt knife for de-gunking those. Locating it tucked away beneath a book at one end of the bench, Balinor focused on it. "_Bescre__áde ͊_."

It slid out from under the book and across the bench to automatically begin scraping the mortars clean.

From the drawers near the window, Balinor bade the various cleaning supplies Gaius kept free themselves and join him at the bench. "_Feormness ̽_." He instructed them, and watched with a smirk as they got to work dusting and scrubbing the room.

They were doing a fine job. Better than he could do in his current state, so he left them be and headed up the steps to his room, and veritably fell across the small space to throw himself face down on his bed. The minute his head hit the pillow he took a deep breath and smiled, heading off into dreamland.

* * *

It couldn't have bee more than a minute later that he felt somebody shaking his shoulder, dragging him back from the wonderful world of sleep. With a warning snarl, Balinor squeezed his eyes tighter shut, refusing to sit up and set eyes on Uther. He reached back towards his hip, searching feebly for his blanket and began slapping at the mattress to no avail. The hint was not taken, and the shaking did not cease.

"G'way."

"You have to wake up, Balinor."

… That wasn't Uther. "You're not Uther."

"No." Gaius replied levelly. "You should thank your lucky stars for that. If I was then doubtless I would have resorted to hitting you with whatever I could lay my hands on. Now-" He tugged at his assistant's arm "Time to get up."

"Just gone to sleep."

"You have been asleep for four hours."

That wasn't true. Just a cleverly constructed lie to get him to wake up.

"My chambers are spotless, and I know that you didn't lift a finger to do any of it. What that says about your will power and integrity is utterly lamentable." Gaius tugged at his arm again. "Come on, sit up."

Reluctantly, Balinor did as he was told and lazily turned over to prop himself against his pillow and blink bleary eyes back at his mentor.

In response, Gaius thrust a phial of blue liquid at him "Drink this."

Balinor eyed it suspiciously. "What is it?"

"You don't want to know."

That reluctance refused to go away, even as he reached for the phial, took it, and hesitantly raised it to his lips to down it in one. That was the best way to take Gaius' potions. Inevitably they were foul-tasting, if very effective. He was not disappointed, throwing his forearm across his mouth to prevent the concoction from coming back up. "What was that?!"

"I told you." Gaius answered impassively. "Don't ask questions you are not prepared to hear the answer to."

It was probably best not to know. Balinor blinked hard and shook his head. Whatever that potion was, it was already doing its work. His headache had already begun to recede.

Gaius watched him thoughtfully a moment, aware of what it meant when Balinor smacked his lips and rested a hand on his stomach. "Ready for some breakfast?"

Technically it would no longer be breakfast. More elevenses if he'd been sleeping for four hours like Gaius said. That was neither here nor there. Food was food. "If there's any going."

"You're in luck." The physician rose from his seat on his assistant's bed and strode across the room avoiding the strewn clothing and chips of wood littering the floor. Balinor's spells had not extended to his own private lair, clearly.

Balinor took a moment to gather himself before he followed. With such gangly limbs, gathering oneself was no small task, but he managed to get himself under control quickly enough. He shook his head lightly to disperse the fluff some helpful soul seemed to have packed his ears with while he slept. Not only was he hungry, but he was thirsty. Very thirsty. The thought of a cool drink of water had him on his feet and tottering towards the door and steps down into the physician's chambers.

Despite being in his mid forties, Gaius had never married. Balinor had it on very good authority (his own, and his uncanny ability to stick his nose into other people's business without meaning to) that his mentor was seeing someone. The rather attractive charm that had one day appeared over the main chamber door had been made by Gaius' lady-friend, though Gaius had flustered and made up some rubbish about finding it on a stall in the market whilst out doing his rounds one day.

Due to that fact that he had never married, Gaius had no children. As a result, since his arrival two years ago and subsequent employment as physician's assistant, Balinor had found himself treated less and less as an employee and more and more as a son in the way that Gaius looked after him. There was always food on the table, despite Balinor's habit of sometimes dining with his father at short notice, and always fresh laundry in his room. In return Balinor found himself thinking of Gaius as a second father.

Collapsing on the bench at the table he looked up to find said second father watching him in concern, though there was definitely a touch of amusement in his eyes also.

Gaius stood stirring the heavy pan fresh from the fire, able to look down on Balinor where the boy sat. "You ought to be careful." He told his young assistant in a stern, yet not unkind tone of voice. "If you looked any greener you would resemble a toad."

"Thanks."

"I am serious, Balinor. You need to learn to say no to Uther. If he continues to get you roaring drunk, you will do yourself some damage. It is possible to poison yourself with alcohol, you know."

Balinor nodded, sullen. "I know, Gaius. Just, have you tried saying no to Uther?" He huffed, and folded his arms on the table in front of himself to bury his face in them. "It's like saying no to a child. He pouts. Actually pouts! And folds his arms. I'm waiting for the day he stamps his feet."

"Maybe so, but you shouldn't let him drag you into activities that endanger your health."

"Hm." Balinor lifted his head and fixed Gaius with that serious look that just didn't suit him. It made him look like a little boy trying too hard to appear grown up. "That would be anything that involves setting foot outside the citadel, then. You wouldn't believe it, but _everything_ he does is perilous. 'Let's go hunting, Balinor.' He knows how much I'm against it, but tries to drag me along anyway. Why? Because he leaves the bunnies and boars and that, and heads straight for that cave where that chimera was spotted. It's dead now, by the way. 'Balinor, come with me while I woo this girl.' She's a rusalka, Gaius. A ru-sal-ka. He's spouting love poetry, she's trying to drag him to his watery doom beneath her pond. She's not dead, but she promised me she won't try and kill him again. Not that I'd blame her if she did. Last but not least, there's his absolute crowning achievement. 'Hand me that rope, Balinor. I am going to be the first to capture and tame a unicorn as my personal battle charger.' I mean, why? Why!? The only reason the unicorn was there in the first place is because it was attracted by my magic. _My_ magic. When it had finally bucked Uther off and knocked him out, _I_ had to apologise to it and Anhora, and promise never to let the incredible arse try it again."

Gaius raised an eyebrow. "_That_ is how he got the concussion?"

"Yes. If I didn't go along on these things with him I swear he would be dead! I don't know what he did before I got here, but..." Balinor trailed off and gave a weary sigh. "I don't know what's wrong with him sometimes."

Gaius shook his head lightly, unsure quite what to make of the information he had just been given. It certainly served to explain a few of the prince's unexplained ailments and injuries. "He didn't tangle with half as many magical creatures before you arrived, that is for certain. They are attracted to you like moths to a candle flame. Uther appears to love that. He loves magic, you know that, and I am afraid that it is something you have rather an excess of."

"So I have been told."

That mumbled statement made Gaius frown, but he did not question it. Instead he spooned a bowl of porridge and placed it in front of his exasperated assistant. "Here. Get that down you."

Balinor straightened and dug his spoon about in the thick slop. "Ah. Mortar. My favourite."

"Yes. Well." Gaius took a seat opposite him and began to dig about in his own bowl. "It would be of a more palatable consistency, should my assistant have thought to fetch some more water last night before gallivanting off to the tavern."

Balinor raised both eyebrows at that pointed remark, but did not say anything. Inside, he was cringing.

* * *

He did feel better after devouring the thick porridge. Not quite his usual self, but closer to it. Gaius noticed the change in him also, and remarked on it in relation to the fervour with which he complained about Uther as being an indicator of normality.

It didn't take him long to get washed and changed, though he did not have time to get rid of his stubble. Still, he looked presentable enough. The only reason anyone would pay any attention to him anyway was because Uther would grab him and haul him into the front row of the greeting party for the duration of the reception. Since their friendship began he had become the Prince's shadow whether he wanted to be or not. In truth, he would rather just be Balinor than 'that scruffy peasant the prince has adopted as a pet,' but he wouldn't be rid of Uther's presence in his life for anything.

So he didn't particularly mind it when he and Gaius reached the steps outside the castle doors and he found himself seized by the front of his tunic and dragged down the steps by said arrogant prince.

"You look like the rough end of a badger." Uther growled, not impressed.

Balinor rolled his eyes, but made no move to stop himself being manhandled away from Gaius. "Thank you, Uther. That's very kind of you to say. And how are you this afternoon?"

"Shut up."

Uther let him go on the bottom step and took up his designated position among the highest members of the court, the King on his one side, Balinor on the other.

While the prince made an effort to school himself and his features back into that semblance of angelic innocence and serious threat he always chose for state occasions, Balinor huffed and shot a glance back up the steps behind him to where Gaius stood looking back at him. His mentor had the quirk of an amused smile on his lips, but did not say anything.

Balinor resisted the urge to run away and hide in the same row as him, aware that now he would be in full view of the visiting party, his father's eyes were squarely on him, watching his every move. That knowledge kept him carefully in place and chased away any thoughts of childish rebellion against Uther's wishes.

It was not that he was afraid of his father. Far from it. They had a very close relationship that Balinor treasured. He could say anything to his father without fear of reprimand; make any confession of guilt, ask for advice on any subject, and know that he would not be scorned or ridiculed. For as long as he could remember before coming to Camelot, neither of them had had anyone else. Balinor had never known his mother. She was a priestess, he had been told, but she had died when he was an infant. His father had raised him alone almost from birth and taught him his Dragonlord heritage. The only thing he had not been able to help his son with was his emergent magic.

As peasants, there had been no expectation that Balinor should learn to fight for any purpose other than to defend himself. Nor did he have any ideals to conform to, other than that which his inheritance would one day demand. Even that was far from rigid. So there had been no need for distance between father and son. As such, it was not fear of reprimand that held Balinor in that one spot like an awkward statue, but fear of letting his father down.

The freedom he had been afforded during his short life thus far was a gift he felt ought to be returned in the form of good behaviour and refrain from embarrassment. So tempting as it was to shove Uther off the step onto his pampered backside, Balinor exercised restraint.

Godwyn's party were on their way up through the lower town a guard reported to the King, so all upon the steps prepared themselves, organised themselves, and stood ready.

As he waited, Balinor resisted the urge to look around at the others waiting with him. All of any importance within Camelot's court were present; nobles, knights and personal servants who had been donated for the duration of the visit. The temptation increased ten fold suddenly as he felt something akin to a gentle prod. His knees almost buckled beneath it, a wave of warmth passing over him as the prod became a rather sensuous brush. Not against his body, but against his magic. He did look around, spying Nimueh standing among the other young priestesses beside the stunning, yet stern form of Nyneve on the far side of his father.

She gazed back at him with a sly smirk on her lovely face. It left him confused. Was she flirting with him?

He dismissed that notion as quickly as it had arrived, only to grit his teeth against another adventurous brush against his magic that nearly saw him collapse.

Uther's hand closed tightly around his wrist, hauling him to stand straight once more. "What is _wrong_ with you?" he hissed in as close to a whisper as he could manage. "Are you _still_ drunk?"

"I'm fine." Balinor brushed him off and rolled his shoulders against his tunic. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Nimueh looking perhaps a little too amused, and his father eyeing him with a frown somewhere between concern and exasperation. Constantine was looking at him also, an expression of deep disapproval on his face. Great.

Feeling his ears turning red, Balinor tore his attention away and settled his eyes firmly on the portcullis at the far end of the courtyard. He folded his hands neatly in front of himself, ignoring Uther's attempt to draw his attention with a shoulder bump.

He had never seen Godwyn before, but from what Uther had been harping on about the previous day, the King was quite a sight to behold. He was renowned as one of the best warriors throughout the five kingdoms. Uther aspired to handle a sword as well as him, if not better, which had given Balinor the perfect opportunity to tease him on his footwork troubles.

The procession was indeed impressive, consisting of the King himself at its head, flanked by two of his most trusted knights while others brought up the rear behind various members of court versed in political... things. The visit was all about rewriting a trade agreement, or something. Details like that weren't particularly interesting to Balinor, so he allowed them to go over his head.

Godwyn was not what he had been led to expect by Uther's prattling. A rather slender young man, probably in his mid twenties, with a full head of fine blonde hair, he had a gentle face that was quite difficult to imagine commanding an attack of any kind. Thought it clearly had, seeing as he had successfully fought off several attempts to seize Gawant, including leading the force that expelled the army whose efforts had killed his father and caused him to ascend to the throne himself. He did not even wear armour, but a soft leather jerkin and cloak. He looked less like a warrior King than a librarian. Appearances could be deceptive, Balinor found himself musing. He ought to know better than anyone, seeing as his closest friend was Uther.

The good relations between Camelot and Gawant showed clearly in the tiny number of armed men in Godwyn's entourage. There was a bright smile on the King's face as he approached, riding casually with one hand on his fine horse's reins, the other resting atop his thigh. Once he reached the statue at the foot of the steps, Godwyn held up his hand to signal his entourage to a halt. Immediately the horses were stationary, the team of Camelot servants moved forward to assist the visitors from their mounts.

Constantine smiled, and started down the steps to meet the warrior King himself. "Godwyn."

"Constantine, my friend." Godwyn removed his gloves and swung a leg over his horse's neck to dismount and approach Camelot's King with a spring in his step. They met at the foot of the steps and clasped hands, Godwyn clapping Constantine on the shoulder.

Constantine's smile never wavered as he returned the gesture. "How was your journey? Pleasant, I hope?"

"Long. But pleasant enough."

Balinor suppressed a yawn, and shot a cautious glance over his shoulder at Gaius. He would much rather be back there, even if it was only two rows back, and Gaius was stuck on one end. Looking so shattered and unshaven as he was, he would rather be anywhere other than on display beside the crown prince of Camelot. He fought off another yawn and cursed himself. Why did his body have to start reacting like that _now_? He hadn't felt like yawning since Gaius woke him. Why now?

His father was watching him, that quietly disapproving look on his face that constituted asking politely while silent. It communicated everything Balinor needed to know without actually hearing his father's voice: 'Please get a hold of yourself, boy.'

As if trying to be even more of a disgrace, his brain decided to rebel and assault him with another yawn that he did not manage to hold off. He was falling asleep on his feet.

Constantine and Godwyn were conversing in low tones as they approached the steps. Nothing they said appealed enough that Balinor could wake himself up. He managed to stifle another yawn, and suffered a covert elbow in the ribs and raised eyebrows from Uther.

He had a silent retort lined up in the form of a rather gruesome face he was quite proud of, but something tickled at the back of mind. Something warm and playful that woke him up too fast and sent a wobble through his legs that would have dropped him on the floor had he not been prepared for it. He felt himself flush red and threw a glance at Nimueh across to his right.

She still gazed back at him with her smirk, and made another light attempt to send a shiver through him with a brush against his magic. Her attempts did not go unnoticed, however as out of nowhere Nyneve grasped her wrist in an unforgiving hand and muttered something to her in a voice too quiet to even detect.

Balinor tried to focus his attention on the Kings once more, quietly glad that Nimueh's misbehaviour had been quelled. While what she was doing was quite – nay, extremely – pleasant, it was going to cause him embarrassment in one way or another, and was hardly something he could explain to his father. Maybe he could tell his father anything, but this would not be understood for what it was. Obviously the man knew about girls and that, but he had very little understanding of magic despite being married to a priestess. That aspect of Balinor's education had been left first to the boy himself, and then to whatever guidance Gaius felt qualified to give. There had never been anyone to teach him, and turning to his father and protesting his own behaviour with cries of 'but she's touching my magic!' wouldn't help his cause at all.

So he stood quiet and tried to get on with looking as respectable as he possibly could, albeit while bright red from head to toe. And yawning almost uncontrollably. Just the thought of yawning made him yawn again, too quickly to be able to catch it in time.

Constantine was making a speech. Better listen.

" - for all these years that our kingdoms have been the closest of friends. It is with great joy that we welcome you to Camelot once again -"

Balinor yawned. Oh for goodness sakes.

Godwyn actually shot a glance at him, but did not acknowledge him further.

An almost inaudible sigh could be heard from the space on Uther's right where Balinor knew his father stood, and he closed his eyes in mortification. That was the least of his worries as inevitably any attention from Godwyn brought Constantine's eye on him.

The King did not say anything, though he rolled his eyes at Uther who elbowed Balinor hard in the ribs as another yawn escaped him.

With a sharp intake of breath Balinor glared at the prince, but remained silent. He wanted to respond. He wanted to shove Uther down the steps, or to magically entwine the grutnol's cape around his neck and strangle him for a little while. One look from his father, however, destroyed any thoughts of revenge. He tried his best to behave, though immediately another yawn made a bid the breach his defences and the ensuing battle just resulted in his making a truly ridiculous face that slapped an absolutely done expression on his father's face. The apologetic look Balinor sent his way did little to alleviate it.

Constantine was in front of him suddenly, introducing Godwyn to Uther.

The prince bowed respectfully and clasped hands with the visiting King. The two of them spoke a moment, Godwyn expressing interest in seeing Uther fight in a tournament, Uther responding that it would be an honour to do so before him. Once the introduction and pleasantry was over, Godwyn's attention inevitably turned on the gurning, shabby creature at the prince's side, even if it was little more than a questioning glance.

"Balinor." Constantine explained in a tired tone. "Son of Rion, Dragonlord to Camelot." With that the King directed Godwyn's attention to Rion himself on the far side of Uther before Balinor could attempt a bow or show of respect of any kind. That way disaster lay.

Balinor yawned again, winning an angry glare from Uther.

"You're an idiot."

Better an idiot than an arse. It wasn't his fault that he was so tired. Uther was the one to blame for that. Mostly to blame, anyway. A bit to blame.

Git.

All in all the introductions and speeches lasted about two hours. By the time it finished Balinor was asleep on his feet and had to be woken by Uther kicking him secretly in the shin, having been leaning on the Prince without realising for the better part of an hour.

So he blinked to find the others of the greeting party filing away up the steps and Uther gripping his upper arm to drag him with them.

"Come on." The prince encouraged him, jerking his arm to get his feet moving like some life-sized and ill-made puppet. "Toad."

Balinor went, knocking his foot on the steps above the one on which he had been standing and barely catching himself before he fell up them. He felt a steadying hand on his back and glanced over his shoulder to find his father there, encouraging him forward gently. Rion wore his serious look that could sometimes be translated as disappointment. Balinor worried briefly that was what it was, before he noted the small quirk of a fond smile as his father looked back at him.

Rion shook his head and rubbed a small circle against Balinor back with his thumb in affection before sending him forward alongside Uther with a gentle push. That small gesture raised Balinor's spirits somewhat, though his tiredness did not abate.

The introductions were over, but that evening there was a bloody feast to contend with, and more speeches before he could finally cuddle up in his bed and die for the night.

Gaius was waiting for him at the doors up ahead, a surprisingly sympathetic look on his face. The sight was quite welcome to Balinor. Maybe it meant that he would be excused any duties that afternoon, and be allowed to catch a little more sleep before the festivities began. He bloody hoped so, or else he was liable to drop dead before these three days were out...

* * *

_͌ __L__í__gel__é__oht – Bright with flame_

_͋Á__sw__á__pan – To sweep away, remove, clean_

_͊ __Bescre__áde – To scrape off, clean off_

̽ _Feormness – Clean a place._

**_*Notes: _**_Gaius and Uther make reference to Nimueh being able to change her appearance, therefore do not recognise her when she strolls right into Camelot posing a servant in 'The poisoned chalice'. _

_***** Reference is made to the art of a Dragonlord being too close to magic for Uther to spare them from the purge in 'The last Dragonlord', but it is not specifically identified as magic, so artistic license away!_


	3. I: Chapter III

-Three -

* * *

Royal visits were never anything to write home about. A shipment of overinflated egos belonging to the super privileged riding into Camelot amid a burst of their own self-importance with what seemed like the sole aim of disrupting the lives of all in whichever unfortunate kingdom they happened to be gracing at the time.

… A little long-winded, but nonetheless not bad for a supposedly illiterate peasant.

Balinor took a bite of the assumed fruit in his hand and let his head rest against the pillar at his back. As if bellowing around the castle hallways and swaggering over all in their path was not enough, those who qualified as royal enough for a royal visit took to feasting. A lot.

Currently the hall of ceremonies was alive with the hubbub and joviality of what was sure to be one of many feasts. The very prospect was both tiring and exceedingly irritating.

Standing at the far end of the hall, almost beneath the large window depicting the great red dragon, Balinor hid himself away and made himself as content as he could be. Those around him revelled in the amiable atmosphere, and let persistent servants pile their plates high with the rich foods, their goblets be filled with finest wine.

He took another bite of his unidentified fruit and chewed thoughtfully. None of the people seated at the tables having grown up in the manner he had thought this feast anything more than a necessity granted to them by their own superior birth. They were entitled to feast and be merry while those not permitted to sample the food or join the festivities served them.

He, having been raised as a peasant, saw it as a massive waste of food.

Nobody needed to eat as much as was placed before the nobles in the hall. Half of what was piled on their plates would not be eaten and would just go to the hounds waiting patiently and expectantly under the long tables. The act of feasting seemed so alien to him. It was such an unnecessary indulgence.

While he himself was permitted to sit with the high born bunch happily gorging themselves stupid, he refrained. Lurking at the back eating a … whatever the thing in his hand was, while keeping out of everyone's way was just fine by him.

Uther, of course, did not understand his aversion to a good feast. As with many aspects of his lowly friend's life, Uther could not grasp his reasons and found them laughable. He had not long ago tried to get Balinor to join him at the King's table, but Balinor had declined. How someone could be happy on their own out of the throng, eating a … whatever that thing – a fruit, maybe? - was, Uther could not comprehend. So he had correctly, yet unknowingly so, put it down to being a peasant thing, and had tried to change the subject. He could have returned to his table and continued with the feast, he did not have to stay and try and wring any more conversation out of Balinor, but he certainly could not admit aloud that he was missing his friend's company, though Balinor knew that, obviously.

- "What _is_ that_ thing_?"

Balinor glanced at the half-eaten object in his hands and gave a light shrug. "I have no idea."

"Where did you get it from?"

"Found it on the floor."

Uther wrinkled his nose in disgust. "You're eating something you picked up off the floor?"

"Yeah." Balinor shrugged again. "And?"

"What was it doing on the floor in the first place?"

"Probably fell off a platter or something."

"And you saw it, picked it up and started eating it?"

The peasant boy gave a firm nod. "Yes."

The prince blanched. "Have you seen the state of this floor?"

"It's fine, Uther." Balinor returned, his tone bored. "I picked off as much of the fluff as I could see."

"..." Uther pursed his lips, considering his friend carefully a moment. Though watching him eat that thing, knowing where it had come from almost turned him away. "You're a cretin." He concluded. "You really are."

The look Balinor directed at him, eyebrows raised in surprise forced a slow head shake out of the Prince.

"You have the manners of a swine."

"Rather the manners of a swine than a face like a dog's arse." Came the swift, level, and somewhat gruff reply.

After which Uther had promptly given up on him and returned to his seat beside his father. Not before administering a sharp punch to Balinor's forearm, of course. Not in affection. -

Uther would never understand his aversion to feasts, Balinor knew. He did not expect him to. The view of them as highly wasteful and unnecessary was never going to change as far as the young warlock was concerned, even if one day he would be nobility in his own right. From where he stood he observed his father sneakily tucking away all that he could not eat with the intention of taking it back to his chambers for later. Likely breakfast the following morning. Some of it would undoubtedly make its way to Gaius' chambers for his son by the end of the evening.

Likely to be dinner tonight, Balinor thought, making idle examination of the large stone visible at the centre of his mystery fruit. The thing baffled him. It was hairy on the outside, and now it contained a stone? It just got stranger and stranger.

He drew his attention away from it and focused on the party at the top table, his father among them. It was not Rion who commanded his attention this time, but Constantine and Godwyn.

The alliance between Camelot and Gawant was a strong one, and the two monarchs very good friends. Hence the great celebrations always laid on whenever Godwyn visited Camelot's lands. It was of great importance to both Kingdoms that the alliance remain strong, as it had for many, many years. Since the time of Bruta, in fact.

With a thoughtful eye, Balinor looked Godwyn over, hoping to gain some inkling as to why Uther was so enamoured with the man. As before, in the courtyard, he didn't look much. Hardly the warrior king Uther had made him out to be. Yes, he appeared every inch the King, not the type who would take pleasure in the heat of battle, but more likely curl up beside his fireplace with a good book.

Godwyn could not be more than ten years older than Uther. Already he had proven himself a fine king, and a great asset as an ally to Camelot. He had assisted Constantine in matters of state and potential war when the need to present the Kingdom alongside its allies had arisen. Balinor smirked to himself, and took another bite of his... thing. He had heard from Delwen, maidservant to the Lady Elfleda, who had been told by her friend Hattie, a maid in Lady Margaret's household, who had heard from Aled, the charcoal boy who had overheard a conversation between Sir Baldulf's Squire Mabon and Sir Pslomydes' manservant Jack, who had it on good authority from his master's amused mumblings to Sir Ector that an extremely drunken Uther had been heard confessing to Sir Galvarium in the Rising Sun one night that originally the plan had been to strengthen the alliance between Camelot and Gawant through marriage. Thus Constantine and Godwyn's father had planned the betrothal of the then quite young Godwyn to the child Camelot's Queen carried at that time. Unfortunately, the planned union fell apart before it was even formed when Uther popped out allegedly sans lady parts, so the whole idea had been abandoned pretty sharpish.

Though the very idea of Uther's having come at all close to being betrothed to Godwyn almost made Balinor choke on lumps of suspicious floor fruit in gleeful laughter. He managed to save himself the inconvenience and swallow in safety.

Still, he couldn't help but snort looking at Godwyn speaking with Constantine, and Uther hanging on the visiting King's every word. The faithful wife.

Uther had yet to realise that his pet peasant knew of the proposed (ha, ha!) arrangement, and would surely be mortified if he did. So of course, Balinor would do what any decent friend would do.

Hold onto it and roll it out at the opportune time to cause Uther the most horror and irreparable embarrassment. For though Balinor did not like attacking Uther physically unless provoked, he had absolutely no issue with tearing the Prince's self esteem and ego to pieces with words. They served him better than physical violence ever had.

Chuckling, he drew his eyes away from his stupid friend and absorbed himself in examining the mostly-eaten fruit in his long fingers.

"... It's a peach."

Balinor looked up hurriedly, feeling a light, playful brush against his magic as Nimueh approached.

She nodded to the fruit in his hand. "They grow upon a tree on the Isle of the Blessed." She explained, inclining her head towards it. "The High Priestesses teach us that the tree originated in a far off land across the Great seas of Meredor to which my sisters once travelled. The stone at its centre is the seed. One of the Priestesses returned with such a stone and placed it into the sacred ground of the Isle that we may nurture it with magic, and help it to grow. These peaches tonight are a gift from Nyneve, and the other Priestesses of the Isle."

Balinor felt his skin pale, and flicked his mortified eyes to the half-eaten peach currently residing in his hand. "Oh." Unsure quite what he ought to do, he held it out to her awkwardly. "M'sorry. Didn't realise."

Nimueh looked at the fruit in amusement, but took it nonetheless. "You have absolutely nothing to apologise for, Balinor. All here are perfectly welcome to enjoy them, regardless of status. Though..." She hesitated, and dropped her voice to little more than a murmur those around them would not hear, "Of all here tonight, you are perhaps one of the more entitled to enjoy their sweetness."

He looked at her quizzically, not quite sure that he understood her reasoning, but she did not explain. Instead she raised the peach to her lips and took a bite, savouring the taste.

"It is, however," She began, raising her deep blue eyes to meet his dark ones and giving a secretive smile, "a deep, and meaningful gesture to share the Isle's fruit with another."

Balinor swallowed, his throat suddenly very dry as she presented the peach to him in both her hands. Nerves churning in his belly, he took it and held it awkwardly, unsure quite what to do with it. Eat it, he supposed, but perhaps that was not the correct way to behave now? Offending Nimueh was not something he wanted to do.

Heat prickled at his cheeks, his palms feeling sweaty. Or maybe it was the peach juice, he couldn't quite be sure.

His lack of activity did not seem to worry Nimueh, who folded her arms over her chest and, surprisingly, took up a lean against the pillar alongside him.

"You are not eating tonight?" She queried in a conversational manner, a tone of slight curiousity tucked away beneath.

"Only sacred fruits I pick up off the floor." He returned bluntly, and promptly flushed red as his brain caught up to his mouth.

Nimueh did not seem to have any opinion on his words, or the inadvertent revelation of the peach's origins. She chose instead to make an observation. "You never take part in feasts. Since your arrival at Court, I have never once seen you sit down to feast with us."

There was a question hiding in there somewhere, Balinor's painfully lethargic brain was quite sure. It just did not want to comprehend, occupied as it was by the sudden leap in more interesting things around him. Nimueh's presence was... intoxicating. Whether she meant it to be or not, Balinor was unsure. Either way, his whole being tingled when she was near. His magic leapt and almost jerked against any attempt to rein it in. It reached out in search of hers, brushing against it, sending a shiver through him.

He coughed, and folded his arms tightly over his chest. Outwardly, he did not show any sign of nerves or feeling. Inwardly he did battle with the new, intense sensations. It was unlike anything he had ever felt before. Not physical, not even emotional. It was on another level entirely. A touch against the part of him that was his magic; that which was him and his in every sense of the word. He suppressed a shudder and made an attempt to get a grip on his errant magic before he somehow managed to embarrass himself, as much as he did not want to. If the sensation was physical, it would probably be considered obscene.

He almost felt guilty for it, beyond his control as it may be. Who was he to have such 'feelings'? No more than a scrawny peasant boy, while Nimueh was a Priestess in training. Maybe he was a Dragonlord in waiting, but it was a right he would not receive for some time. Nimueh was firmly out of his reach for hopefully, for his father's sake, many years to come. Besides that, he knew next to nothing about her. They had not spoken at all in the two years he had been in Camelot until that morning, and then he had been suffering under the influence of a particularly nasty hangover. It was unfeasible that he should have made a good impression on her.

"Balinor?"

She remembered his name, then?

"Hm?" He cocked his head to look down at her beside his shoulder, suddenly much less intimidated to look into her face and remember that she was still a girl of his own age, whatever else she may be. "Yes?"

Her lips curved up slightly at the edges. "You have not answered my question."

That was right. She had asked a question, hadn't she? One of those questions women asked that weren't actually questions. Or traps, as his father had once called them.

"Waste of good food." He returned almost gruffly. "Enough here to feed my village for a month, all gone in one night, and half of that to the dogs."

It took a moment for him to realise that Nimueh was looking at him with a light frown. The sight made his stomach drop into his boots in dismay. "Forgive me, my Lady." He murmured with a respectful dip of his head. "I spoke too plainly. Have I offended you?"

She shook her head lightly. "Not at all. It is refreshing to meet one who offers their opinion so readily." She smiled, lips twitching against a grin to see him duck his head in apparent mortification. "It is rare. Even rarer for the opinion offered to be so honest."

A glint of humour in his eyes, Balinor lifted his head a little meet her own, candid eyes. "Refreshing?"

"And shocking as a winter's rain."

"Makes an impression, then?" He ventured, feeling a little bolder.

"A lasting one." She agreed, and regarded him a moment with one eye narrowed as she searched his face. Finally, she shook her head. "I cannot fathom you out."

Balinor lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "Nothing to fathom out. Plain-speaking and dull as a blunt pitchfork, that's me."

Nimueh gave a light chuckle absolutely dripping with disbelief. "I think that little could be farther from the truth."

"That is your opinion?"

"Refreshing, is it not?"

Balinor smirked, and took a bite of his peach, chewing thoughtfully. He did not say anything further, but turned his attention on the festivities instead.

Already Uther looked merrier than usual. For somebody so obsessed with manliness, and presenting oneself as a 'pillar of strength', the Prince really did not consider the dashing of those ideals with such a high rate of alcohol consumption. In a few hours it would be down to Balinor and Edmund to drag him through the corridors to put the paralytic grutnol to bed.

Personally, Balinor thought that drinking one's weight in wine seemed like a particularly bad idea. The previous night was enough for a little while. Gaius was right – you could poison yourself with alcohol, and the amount Balinor had consumed during the previous night's session must have been close. Exactly how he and Uther had made it from the Rising Sun back to the Citadel escaped the hold of memory, but there was the hazy recollection of lots of leaning on one another, and raucous singing... and prolonged and painful vomiting into a bush somewhere. Hopefully it did not belong to anyone, or somebody, somewhere, was in for a nasty surprise when they next thought it needed pruning.

He chased the thought and any guilt or embarrassment at potential situations arising from it out of his head and glanced at Nimueh.

What was she even doing there? She had not moved but still leant against the pillar beside him, watching the rest of the feast going on around them. Her sisters all remained around Nyneve, engaging in conversation with various Camelot nobility and members of Godwyn's party. Nyneve herself spoke in playful, charming tones with Constantine and Godwyn.

None of them actually feasted. Balinor had observed that before, on previous occasions. The Priestess' function was more subtle than that of mere guests. They and their mistress moved around the room, mingling rather than remaining in one place, while eyes were drawn to follow their movements. Later on they would dance and call down a blessing on the Court and its guests from the Goddess. That was always a sight to behold, and one that spoke to Balinor on a level he had never understood.

The Priestesses truly were strange creatures. Even now as he watched them, only Nyneve put food to her lips, and that was a peach she shared with Godwyn. That gesture made sense now, at least. Thanks to Nimueh.

Despite having magic, Balinor did not purport to understand the intricacies and rituals that others of his kind seemed to know all about. Somewhere, deep down it saddened him greatly that he did not have that knowledge.

Nimueh and the other Priestesses would have been taught from a very early age all about their magical heritage. More than read about the rites of Beltane, they would have always been a part of the celebrations, making the garlands of may, and building the fires. Not sat at their windows watching the glow from far off flames, fearful that asking to follow their hearts and go to them would cause their fathers undue sadness and worry.

They would never have felt Samhain pass, knowing somehow, somewhere, others were gathering together who felt the same thing they did, but could not understand.

While Rion, as a Dragonlord was a creature of the Old Religion, and revered and respected magic and all that it could give and teach, he did not understand it. Neither did he understand the feelings that stirred within his boy when nights of powerful magic approached, and Balinor could not answer the calls that so consumed him with the need.

Balinor lowered his head a little, his heart clenching in his chest. Had his mother lived, then things would have been different.

Thoughts of his mother had him wanting to go. To leave the celebrations and head across the citadel to the place he knew that he would receive some comfort for his sadness without disturbing his father. There was one these past two years who had behaved almost as a mother to him. She would provide him a shoulder to cry on, even if it was not within her ability to embrace him and hold him as a mother would. Thinking of her, the want to see her almost moved his feet and took him from the hall, but he resisted. He would go later on, when there came a chance to slip away, when Uther was too drunk to draw attention to the fact that he was missing.

"You are not amused." Nimueh pointed out suddenly, that shy smile on her face as her voice pulled him from his moping and introspection. "The merriment is not merry enough for you?"

"I'm protesting peacefully." He answered in a deadly serious tone that had her raising her eyebrows in amusement. "It wouldn't look right if I was enjoying myself."

"I see." She cocked a glance at Uther, who was currently running through the events of the previous day's tourney final in a manner too animated to be good for the nearby pitchers of wine. Or poor Edmund's patience, and nerves judging by the man's face. "And what does our esteemed Prince have to say about your objections?"

"Oh, he doesn't know I'm protesting." Balinor answered casually, and begun striking his heel lightly against the flag stones beneath him. "And he thinks I'm strange for not enjoying a good feast. Just as he believes me to have a mental affliction for not wanting to hit things with swords, or shoot deer."

Nimueh actually giggled at that. "A mental affliction?"

Balinor nodded, all seriousness. "Yes. He found out about their existence from Gaius some time ago, and now it's his favourite explanation whenever somebody doesn't enjoy the things he does, or behaves at all out of the ordinary. According to his logic, half of Camelot is mentally afflicted with something or other."

"Does he have any idea what?"

Balinor grunted, and shrugged. "No idea. Sense, probably, judging by the way in which he behaves."

"He is not the most empathetic of people, our Prince." Nimueh observed with a smile as Uther's gesticulating hands ventured too close to a pitcher and actually knocked it over.

Edmund lunged forward in trained response, but was still too slow. The manservant's heart stopped thumping with horror as the pitcher halted at a dangerous tilt, and fell no further. He did not even have to look far to offer Balinor a nod of thanks, finding the young warlock within easy sight across the room, leaning against a pillar with one hand raised towards the pitcher, irises aglow with the gold of magic. The glow that meant averted spillages as far as Edmund was concerned.

Balinor dropped his hand to fold his arms again, Edmund having the pitcher situation in hand, and blinked lazily as the gold faded from his eyes. "No," he murmured in reply to Nimueh's statement, "but I'm working on it."

"Oh, you are?" She was looking up at him with a grin that sent a pleasant tingle down his spine.

He nodded, almost off handedly. "Yeah. I'm training him."

"Like a dog?"

Balinor shook his head, a light smile playing across his lips at the mental image. "No, but that's not a bad idea. Whistles and food...?"

That he even appeared to be seriously contemplating means of training the Prince made Nimueh laugh out loud. Quietly, she did have to wonder why Balinor put any stock in Uther at all. The Prince was brash, arrogant, loud and stubborn as a donkey. Not to mention famously bad tempered, violent and unforgiving. No one could hold a grudge like Uther. It did not take much to make him hate you.

Unless you were Balinor.

There was something very curious in that. It was no secret that the boys were the best of friends. They went everywhere together, did everything together. Except hunt, though reportedly only because Balinor did not agree with it, and was a rather skilled saboteur by all accounts.

Everyone had seen how rough the Prince was with Balinor, however. It was a common sight to see Uther punch Balinor, or push him down the smaller flights of stairs around the citadel. There was even talk that the previous week Uther had chased Balinor around the castle with a sword. An incident that only ended when Balinor managed to lock Uther in the tower and left him there to cool down for a couple of hours.

"Why do you allow him to treat you as he does?" She found herself asking. "If it is not too invasive a question."

"What do you mean?" Balinor blinked back at her owlishly.

She shrugged against the cool pillar, resettling her shoulders into a position that afforded more comfort, and threw a glance at the chortling Prince as he found something Sir Johfrit had said as amusing as the knight himself clearly did. "Uther is a violent oaf. I heard that he chased you with a sword."

"Is that all?" Balinor shook his head and rubbed at his ear absently, sure that something had flitted inside without invitation, and rolled his shoulders against the stone at his back to settle into his lean once more. "Chased me with a spear once, too. Sword has less reach."

"But why do you let him do it?" She pressed. "Because he is the Prince? Or are you reluctant to use your magic against him?"

Balinor snorted. "Don't give a damn that he's the Prince. Could be a common farmyard swine for all I care. And I have no qualms with using my magic against him. Gets on my tits enough, can always blast him out a window. Done that a few times. Quite satisfying actually."

Now it was Nimueh's turn to look at him owlishly. He cleared his throat, and gave a less... awful answer to her question, in a softer, much less gruff tone,

"Uther is my friend. Even if he is a colossal git. He doesn't know how to show emotion, and has a temper hotter than the pits of hell. The line between being fun and a death threat blurs on occasion, and that he's never really been made to understand that actions have consequences doesn't help. He's less of a pig than he was when I first met him, apparently, and is getting better. His punches hurt less now."

"Yet you still let him do it."

"It's how he says 'I love you'."

"I see." The tone of her voice was scornful, but Balinor understood that it was directed at Uther, not himself. He felt a rise of protectiveness over his friend, and had to come to his defence.

"No, you don't." He sighed, trying to find the right words. "Uther is emotionally repressed. So much so that he genuinely believes it is unmanly to show affection in any way other than slapping and punching. That's why I put up with it. That, and for some reason I genuinely like him. Perhaps I do have a mental affliction. Though, according to some people he is actually starting to behave more like a normal person, and less like a rampaging wild boar, and that can only be a good thing for the Kingdom. It's helping him be a better Prince."

"And in turn will help him to be a better King?"

Again, Balinor snorted. "He'd be a bloody terrible King." It took a moment for him to realise that she did not mean now. He cleared his throat and steadied himself. "He'll get there eventually, if I keep working on him."

"You afford yourself much credit." Nimueh told him playfully, grinning up at him.

"Some of the bruises I've had, I damn well deserve it." He looked down at her then, meeting her eyes.

They stared at one another a moment, before he felt himself reddening and looked away, back at the top table and incidentally Nyneve. "So tell me," he began, not daring look at Nimueh until the colour had receded from his cheeks, "why are you all the way back here, lurking, when your sisters and your mistress are enjoying the evening?"

"I find conversation of tournaments and slaying beasts boring beyond belief." Nimueh answered flatly, with surprising candour. "Rather than endure it, I thought that I would go in search of more interesting company."

"Yet you are standing here with me?"

"A creature so strange as yourself is infinitely more interesting than the exploits of men and boys enamoured with killing everything, and one another."

That sentence appealed to him much more than she could probably know. Still, Balinor let a small smile quirk his lips as he latched onto what she had said aside from the killing remark. "So I'm a creature, am I?"

"Undoubtedly." She smirked and met his gaze.

He felt that same warm brush of her magic against his, and took a small breath. She did not miss it, as her smirk grew into a small grin filled with lovely white teeth.

She had to keep doing that, didn't she? Surely she must know what it was doing to him? Balinor's eyes widened. He fought from looking at her. She _was_ flirting with him. She had to be if she knew what it did to him when she did that.

He did look at her then, surprised as she shyly lowered her eyes and shuttered them behind thick, dark lashes. It may have been his imagination, the candlelight, but were her cheeks a little pink?

He ought to say something, but just what escaped him. What did you say to a girl who may like you? Especially when it was so damn obvious that you liked her? He _had_ to say something. _Anything. _Swallowing deeply, he opened his mouth to speak, certain that a strangled gargle would be all to come out, when Nimueh looked up abruptly, across the room at Nyneve.

"My mistress is calling me." She said quietly, and offered him a small smile before stepping away from the pillar and out into the merry atmosphere.

Balinor watched her go, a small frown on his face. Strange, but he had not heard Nyneve call Nimueh's name. The High Priestess had not even looked up from her conversation with the Kings, yet her young charges were drawing to her from around the hall. That the Priestesses were gathering could only mean one thing. All in the hall knew it also, and stopped what they were doing to watch.

In all, Camelot possessed seven Priestesses at any one time. Nyneve, the High Priestess and Court Sorceress, and six Priestesses studying beneath her that they may too take their rites and become High Priestesses in their own right.

While at Court, they served much the same purpose as Nyneve herself: to preside over ceremonies and festivals of religious importance, and serve as stewards of all things magic in the Kingdom.

Tonight they danced for the Court, and the Triple Goddess, and asked that she hand down her blessing upon Camelot and Gawant, and the enduring alliance between both Kingdoms.

Balinor observed them as they took their place at the centre of the hall and organised themselves into two rows, Nyneve at their head.

They were quite a sight; Nyneve, dark-haired and beautiful, dressed in a gown of flowing green and silver, her hands raised and cupped above her head, lovely face tilted to the sky. Behind her, the young Priestesses, each dressed in long gowns of varying design, all white silk trimmed with gold.

Each and every girl was a beauty to behold in themselves, the sight of them stood together, though it was one he had seen many times in the past two years made Balinor's stomach clench with nerves. For the first time it struck him that which he saw before him, the faces of these beautiful girls, was a sight that he alone could see. Camelot's Priestesses as they truly were.

The realisation made him feel a little guilty. He had to fight not to look away, aware that to not pay them attention was an insult when they danced.

Any guilty feelings faded away as his eyes fell on Nimueh. She looked back at him from where she stood at the end of the first row behind Nyneve. Shyly, she lowered her eyes to the ground at her feet, a light smile on her lips.

Balinor had no time to ponder her behaviour as the minstrels began to play, and the seven Priestesses began to dance.

Nyneve stepped forward in two dainty movements, bringing her arms to her sides in an arc and lowering her head. Her bare toes brushed the flagstones beneath her feet, her arms sweeping intricate paths through the air as she swayed, and twirled with the music. Behind her, the Priestesses began to sway as one, performing the same arm movements and twirls as their mistress. It was breathtaking to watch, all six girls moving as one being. No step was out of place, no sweep out of sequence.

Nimueh moved flawlessly, no longer distracted by outward influences as she danced for her King, and her Goddess.

Magic permeated the air, flowing through every living being; every whisper of wind in the hall; every droplet of water. It touched Balinor's own magic, singing in his every fibre, drawing him in with all that he was. His magic danced inside him, beating alongside his heart with the rhythm of the dance played out before him. He took a deep breath and felt it race through him; sensed every thread of life woven throughout his entire being, every stitch and fray in the tapestry that was his personality and spirit, and all that he was, and would ever be. His eyes slid closed, a welcome rush of warmth settling behind them as they began to glow the golden colour of magic.

Everything was so alive – more than it ever was at any other time inside the dusty old halls of the castle. It seeped from the air, and the water, and the flame and the Earth, into the very walls of Camelot, awakening the ancient magic that lay dormant there – a city built by magic. The whole world around him vibrated as life, and emotion, and magic surrounded him.

It was incredible.

Before the Court of Camelot and its guests the Priestesses danced, and magic danced with them.

Others in the hall slowed, and became transfixed in a way others of the audience did not. A serving boy, and a maid stilled, their own small magic touched by the wild dance of the world around them. A noblewoman relaxed in her chair, staring wide eyes at the swaying, twirling Priestesses of magic, while a squire and a shield maiden who had been talking together in one corner fell silent and closed their eyes sleepily. Despite their grasp on the magic that touched them, none of them felt what Balinor felt.

His head titled back against the pillar and his eyes closed, the peasant boy traced the magic weaving through the air as trails of swirling colour. The magic in the air, and the magic inside every individual being with the hall.

He watched the Priestesses dance, seven forms of glowing light and colour of many different shades. Nyneve burned as a slash of harsh green, much brighter than most of the others moving with her. Nimueh matched her, shining vibrant red in the dark of his mind's eye.

He lifted his hand above his head, and observed in wonder the bright glow of almost blinding white that was his own magic. His very essence. But it was more than that. Whereas the others he saw shone only one colour, an aura of blue light surrounded his white, interwoven by threads of bright gold. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before, and so very strange. It followed the movement of his hand in hurried, jerky movements as though worried about being left behind, never mixing completely with his own inner light, but passing in and out of it as though completely independent of it. A part of him, yet separate.

A smile found its way onto his lips. It felt warm, and.. friendly? His, but not.

The feeling of utter euphoria pure magic gave him prevented him from wondering about it too deeply, or worrying at its difference. It was beautiful. Absolutely breathtaking, and glowed all the brighter as small flashes of colour leapt from the other slashes of magic in the hall to flit across and dance playfully around it.

He waved his hand back and forth across his field of 'vision', grinning, almost drunk watching the sparks of colour bob and sway. It was wonderful.

Then, suddenly, it was gone.

The Priestesses reached the end of their dance, and the magic ended. The colours faded away. His own white glow faded, the blue and gold sank slowly into his skin and settled comfortably within him alongside his pulse, but curiously out of his grasp.

Balinor opened his eyes to find Nyneve in the same position she had begun the dance, the Priestesses crouched upon the ground behind her, heads bowed. Constantine began to applaud, quickly joined by Godwyn and the rest of the Court.

Blinking, Balinor glanced about, feeling a little light-headed, but extremely pleasant with it. He felt wonderful, warm all over as though having just stepped out of a warm bath. He began to applaud also, somewhat behind everyone else in showing his appreciation while the Priestesses began to dance to the new song the minstrels played. Others began to step onto the floor. Once the Priestesses had completed their prayer, the floor was opened to all for dancing should they so wish.

Balinor smiled, and began to tap his foot along with the music. As an oaf dancing was not for him, but he did enjoy watching everyone else have fun.

In his self-imposed duty, he threw a glance at the top table to see Uther once again waving his arms about and bellowing self-importantly over the music, braying about something violent with Sir Johfrit. The idiot was fine. Satisfied, Balinor settled his shoulders against the pillar and watched the dancing, feeling deeply relaxed.

The Priestesses moved about the floor, selecting young men from the nobility and drawing them to the floor to dance with them. Balinor noted Nyneve taking his father's hand and encouraging him to stand and dance with her as was usual. The Court Sorceress and Dragonlord always shared a dance at these things. Today was no exception.

Balinor grinned at his father and flicked his eyebrows, aware that Rion was infinitely more graceful than he was, and won a sarcastic face pull behind Nyneve's back. His grin grew a little, and he swallowed a chuckle. Watching others dance was always enjoyable.

So engrossed was he that he did not notice Nimueh's approach until her hand was closed around his wrist, pulling him away from the pillar.

Immediately he stumbled forwards after her, his stomach knotted. "No!"

"Come on!" Nimueh grinned at him over her shoulder, yanking him towards the floor.

Panic rose in the young warlock. "Nimueh I can't!"

"Don't be foolish."

"No, really." He halted as she dropped his wrist and grabbed his hands to place his left on her shoulder and take his right in hers.

"Of course you can." She began to skip, dancing to the right in the same direction as the other couples to the spirited music.

"I can't dance!"

As if to prove his point his feet immediately tangled and he stumbled heavily, almost falling flat on his face in front of Nimueh.

She pulled him to stand straight, ignoring his lack of coordination to place his hands back where they needed to be and dance away again.

Balinor went with her, managing a few steps before stumbling again. He felt his face flush red, and planted his eyes on his stupid, disobedient feet to watch where he put them and avoid looking at Nimueh. Even keeping an eye on them was ultimately pointless as Nimueh changed direction and he tripped trying to keep up.

He did hit the floor that time, almost tripping up the neighbouring couple. His breath hitching, he quickly pushed himself to stand, mortified.

"Balinor, come on!" Nimueh chastised him, apparently beginning to lose her patience.

What did she expect? He had told her that he couldn't dance.

She arranged his hands once again, and pulled him left.

The others around them were not particularly pleased with him by the expressions on their faces. They were all noblemen and women dressed in their finery. He was a common peasant, wearing the same thing he had worn since leaving his village. Nyneve was frowning at him in absolute disapproval, Rion didn't know what to do with him and appeared baffled by his presence on the floor in the first place. Gaius at the top table looked sympathetic, and Uther was laughing so hard at him he may well be sick.

And Nimueh. Balinor swallowed. Nimueh looked disappointed in him.

He felt hot. His eyes were beginning to tear up despite himself. He felt so self-conscious as everyone stared or sneered at him. Nimueh looked embarrassed to be seen with him and regretted choosing him to dance with in the first place. Uther's laughter was so loud and raucous it may as well have been the only thing he could hear.

Balinor took a shuddering breath. For all that he made light of it, pretended that it didn't matter, he hated his clumsiness. Hated the way it made him feel, and the way that others looked at him because of it. He was used to being embarrassed by it, and laughed at because of it, but it was not just him it was embarrassing this time.

Nimueh should have picked a graceful nobleman, as she was supposed to have. Not.. not a clumsy, inconsequential nothing like him.

He blinked, and looked away, aware that Nimueh was looking at him in sudden concern.

"Balinor?"

He swallowed, trying to hold the tears in.

"Balinor, you idiot!" Uther's amused shout took him by surprise and broke his concentration, sending him stumbling over his own feet again. He took a breath, but did not try and throw a hand out to catch himself. Without thinking about what he was doing, he threw out his magic instead. It reached out, and it grabbed the nearest thing it could find. It grabbed Nimueh's.

The effect was instantaneous. He found his feet, as though he had grabbed her hand to steady himself, and straightened.

Nimueh drew a sharp breath as their magic touched, left breathless as the two forces met as though his hand had clapped down in hers. She raised her eyes to meet his, her elegant brows pulled together in wonder as she stared at him. Balinor looked back at her, lips slightly parted in surprise. He closed her hand in his, gripped her shoulder, and moved to the right, taking her with him.

They moved among the others on the floor, not moving with them, but weaving in and out of them, twisting and turning around one another to pass between and around others in their path. Balinor raised Nimueh's hands above their heads, spinning under them as she did. Beneath him his feet skipped lightly over the flagstones, worn old boots barely whispering as their toes dusted the stone. He twirled Nimueh, her skirts billowing out around her hand holding them gathered from her feet, white ribbons whirling around her head where they twined through her long, dark hair.

Balinor spun around behind her, taking her hands that they skipped back to back.

Their light movements carried them around the floor to the quick tempo of the music – a tempo that seemed to be increasing with the tension and cares draining from Balinor's taught shoulders.

He no longer noticed anybody else; did not realise when he no longer needed to navigate around others on the floor. He saw only Nimueh, as together they skipped about the flagstones. His magic sang throughout his body, crying out in pure joy with him as it touched Nimueh's and he moved with more grace than he had ever commanded before.

Nimueh wore a bright smile as she danced, her eyes locked with his. There was nothing besides one another, and the music surrounding them. They noticed nothing else. Not that Uther was no longer laughing, nor the suddenly empty floor between the tables, nor the blood-pumping rhythm that sounded in the enthusiastic clapping all around them.

They noticed only one another as they skipped and twirled around the floor in their own spirited dance.

Magic seemed to spark through the air between Priestess and Warlock, pushing them on faster and faster in their turns and skips until neither of them noticed the movements they made any longer.

The minstrels approached the end of their song, loathe to end it and break the spectacle before them. But all things must come to an end.

The music reached a crescendo with a flourish of notes, the spinning couple coming to an abrupt halt with it, Nimueh's small hands upon Balinor's slight chest, his arms wrapped around her, his head resting gently against the side of her neck.

They remained like that a long moment, silent, unmoving. At last, Balinor drew back to stand awkwardly before her, his rough hands resting lightly on her bare shoulders. They stared at one another, unaware that they both drew heavy breaths, or even that they had stilled. They simply gazed at one another as though the end of the music had left them in that world of their own.

Somebody, somewhere, began to applaud and just like that, the spell was broken.

Balinor blinked and looked up. He didn't know quite what to do, seeing the others who had been dancing stood back against the long tables that he and Nimueh alone had the floor. They all stood watching the young Priestess and gangly warlock, applauding heartily, expressions of awe and approval on their stunned, smiling faces.

His breath caught, his cheeks flaring red. He released his hold on Nimueh's shoulders, and stepped back further from her, remembering suddenly that he was not meant to touch her. With a nervous breath, he glanced around.

Uther was staring open-mouthed, while beside him Constantine and Godwyn stood, applauding. Balinor swallowed, unsure what to make of being applauded by not one King, but two.

Nyneve applauded also, but reluctantly, a sour expression of marked disapproval on her face. At her side, his father wore a look of absolute disbelief, but with it clear pride. Rion had never seen his boy move with such grace and beauty before. Not his awkward little Balinor. He could not help but applaud his son, even if he did not know quite what else to do.

The Priestesses applauded their sister, and appeared to be talking in low tones of excitement that had Nyneve looking even more sour and unimpressed.

Balinor hiccuped quietly, and swallowed again. Any grace he had possessed had been fleeting and had now well and truly fled. He turned to Nimueh, gave an awkward bow, and 'strode' off the floor.

His heart pounded in his chest, his palms sweaty, balled in tight fists at his sides. He did not return to the pillar beneath the window, but walked straight across the flagstones and out of the main doors, out of the hall of ceremonies and kept on walking. He did not stop.

* * *

_***Notes:** This chapter was so long I've split it. Part I is going to be longer than I had realised, as there's such a lot of character introduction going on. Getting to know everyone as they were, rather than what they have become by the time we meet them onscreen. This story is as much about the journey that gets them there as it is the yarn aspect. Stick with it, though, as there is a little bit of adventure to come in between the akward teenage moments. Fear not, if something does not appear to make sense yet, then it will eventually. I have a plan!_

_*Dragonlords don't seem to operate like normal human beings in the way in which their unique powers are inherited, so I figured that they must have some connection to the Old Religion, even if their art is not actually magic.  
_

_* Balinor tells Merlin that his father and grandfather both understood that the Old Religion could 'teach us many things', and for the purposes of this little tale, Rion does not have magic, and neither did his father. That doesn't mean that he doesn't appreciate the wisdom of the old ways ;) _


	4. I: Chapter IV

- Four -

* * *

What on Earth had he just done? In front of all those people?

He quickened his pace, folding his arms tightly over his chest. The tips of his ears were burning. He did not stop walking away along the corridor leading from the hall, away from the feast and the people who had seen him do what he had. He did not stop until he reached the Eastern corridor.

Stepping out of the junction, Balinor heaved a deep sigh, and fell back to lean against the wall to the right. Thoughts of his antics, however unintentional they may have been at first, tormented him.

It was not so much what he had done, but that _he_ had done it. The very idea made him anxious. He hadn't even wanted to dance. He just hadn't wanted to disappoint Nimueh when she had seemed so set on it. Disappointing others was perhaps one of his biggest fears. Seeing the look on someone's face when he let them down...

Quite where it had come from, he could not be sure. Probably from his set future as a Dragonlord. It was such a weighty duty, passed with pride from his forefathers for countless generations. There was a great responsibility on his thin shoulders. Not only to one day inherit the sacred gift and become a Dragonlord, to take charge of the great creatures, but also to continue the line. It was his duty – his responsibility – to father a son to one day inherit his gifts. If he did not, then his ancient line would end with him.

Even that should not be beyond his ability. All he had to do was find somebody willing to put up with him for the rest of their life. That was the hard part. The son part was supposedly easy, and given his understanding of how these things worked, should follow soon after. His first born would be a son. The first born of every Dragonlord was always a son, born specifically to inherit the sacred duty. It was a quirk specific to his people. Even he shouldn't be able to mess that up.

He huffed and knocked his head back lightly against the solid stone wall at his back. That was all redundant unless some delusional woman decided that he was attractive enough for such things. That was unlikely. Yes, he was friendly and outgoing enough, but also awkward, and thin, and gangly as a newborn colt. He could barely stand up for more than five minutes before tripping over something, or himself, or bumping his head on thin air. The way he felt when he thought about his future there was always a deep sense of having failed before he had even begun. There was nothing attractive about him in the slightest. He may as well be an assortment of sticks bundled into a scarecrow and held together with old twine. He certainly moved like one, should somebody decide for some reason to animate such an unlikely creation. How was he supposed to be all that he was expected to be? No dragon would do as they were told by such a small, spindly wisp of nothing.

His father assured him that he would fill out and lose the remainder of his childhood angles as he grew to manhood, but Balinor had trouble seeing it. He had been little for as long as he could remember. It was all well and good for his father to make assurances on those quiet occasions he caught his son staring at himself in the mirror. His father was tall, and broad-shouldered. He commanded a presence that no man could deny. Balinor could not recall if it had come with the Dragonlord inheritance. Rion had always commanded a presence in his life, so important to his son as he was.

There was no doubt, however, when Rion stood before a dragon, when he spoke to them in their ancient tongue, and called upon the voice shared between dragon and Dragonlord, they would defer to him and obey his command.

It was a sight that always left Balinor speechless, watching as the great beasts yielded to his father, lowered themselves close to the ground and bowed their heads in respect and deference before him. It both awed and terrified the boy. To see such power, such infinite creatures of magic bow down to a mere man, and to know that one day he would be the one calling for the same respect to be shown to him... that scared Balinor to death.

Nimueh wanted to know why he let Uther treat him the way that he did? What he had told her was true, but not the whole truth. There was more to it than friendship and helping him to be a better person. Uther, for all his differences and awful, awful flaws, was a kindred spirit. Uther understood. Both boys had been born with a purpose in mind, a destiny neither could escape. Uther understood what Balinor felt so entrapped by, because he felt exactly the same way.

What they would one day be was both exhilarating and frightening. To be surrounded every day by people holding expectations of you was soul crushing. In one another they had found what the other so sorely needed. A friend.

Somebody with whom they could just be themselves. Two rambunctious teenage boys, out to drink too much and have a good time, engaging in a bit of rough and tumble and getting into trouble along the way.

Balinor blinked hard and shook his head at himself. All this from being embarrassed? He trips over in public and goes into a complete mental meltdown?

Because others had seen his mishaps and he had not been able to pick himself up, dust himself down and treat it like a joke. To brush it off as though nothing had happened. Everyone fell over now and again. Fell up the odd step, or stubbed one of their ten toes on an object of random origin. Everybody did that. Not everybody was incapable of taking two steps without falling flat on their face. Every stumble felt like a disappointment, made him anxious and prone to tripping again. It did not fit with expectations of a future Dragonlord to be clumsy. A future jester perhaps, but not a Dragonlord. Especially not one to the Court of Camelot.

He was a giant idiot.

Saddened at himself, he moved to head along the corridor to the tower and Gaius' chambers. There was no question of going back to the hall, not when he had been put on public display the way he had. The only option was to go to his room, curl up in bed and snooze. Pretend nothing had happened. That was usually the best way to deal with embarrassment. By morning, after having slept on his dilemma, he may have come up with a way to brush it off, gained the ability to laugh at it and joke the way he normally did.

Passing by a column, he gasped as a hand shot out and closed around his wrist, tugging him to the balustrade overlooking the moonlit courtyard below.

His breath left him, his back meeting the cool stone of the column as he found himself pushed back against it.

Nimueh held him there, her small hands grasping his forearms as she stared up at him in an almost predatory manner. Balinor's surprise did not register with her, those deep blue eyes of hers roving his face, settling a moment on his defined cheekbones, his dark eyes, and thin lips.

"I knew that there was something about you." She murmured, her voice low, quiet, as though she did not want anyone else to hear. "I have not been able to stop thinking about you since this morning, when you showed me your magic."

Balinor swallowed. "My Lady-"

She did not let him speak any further, rising on tiptoes and crushing her lips against his. Her grip on his arms tightened, forcing him back against the pillar without chance of escape.

Balinor stared down at her, wide-eyed. She was...? She was really...? But... they shouldn't...

Her hands moved from his forearms, sliding up to his shoulders and on to trail his cheekbones and twine long fingers through his unruly, dark hair. Her lips brushed lightly against his, refraining in their kisses a moment that she nibbled gently at his lower lip.

He could not hold back any longer. He raised his hands to softly cup her cheeks, and lowered his head to reciprocate her advances with the same fervour and passion as she had begun this embrace.

His hands slid from her cheeks, to her bare shoulders and down to rest at the small of her back. He pulled her to him, holding her against him. She gasped lightly, fuelling his fire that he returned her kisses with renewed vigour, almost ferociously.

She fought back, pushing herself against him, pinning him to the pillar. Her own hands began to wander, curious fingertips descending over his chest, stroking down his sides, around his belt to his back, and down.

Balinor jumped, but made no move to break their embrace. He could not if he tried. Perhaps she had enchanted him?

A foolish notion, he chastised himself, exploring her lips with the lightest touch of his own.

What was it about her, this... beautiful girl, he did not know. Perhaps that was all there was to it? Beauty?

But that was not so. It was much, much more. With a shock of heat through his body, he realised what it was as their magic once again touched. He stepped away from the column despite her hold against him, and pushed her to it instead, snatching desperate kisses as they went.

The intensity of the moment was so strong, unlike anything he had ever felt before. In his limited experience, he could not tell what was right and what was not. Nimueh led him, he followed. It all seemed so natural, and yet some part of him told him. Deep down, he knew that he could go no further. Somehow, he did not doubt that she knew it also.

Gently, slowly, he pulled away from her kisses, trailing light pecks along her soft jaw, over her cheek until they stood together in one another's arms, his cheek resting against her soft hair.

"Balinor." She murmured softly, nuzzling into his neck.

His arms tightened around her. He dipped his head that he whispered in her ear, afraid to speak aloud and break the warm tingle of their magic as it flowed around them. "You don't even know me."

"I wish to." She murmured in return, her hands beginning once again to wander.

"You don't, Nimueh."

"I do."

Balinor shook his head lightly, ceasing the movement of her hands and holding her to him in a soft embrace. "You don't."

"Do you wish to know me?"

He swallowed, and took a small, shuddering breath. What he wanted did not matter. It could not be. "... I am too low for you, Priestess."

His hands fell from her back, hers upon his chest, pushing him gently away.

She turned her head from him, her eyes fixed on the floor as he stepped away. "I see." She said nothing further for a moment, no discernible emotion on her face or in her eyes.

Balinor watched her, fearful that he had upset her, or hurt her. He felt the shift in the air as her magic broke from his and she stood straight from the column.

Still emotionless, she looked at him. The lofty air of a Priestess had returned, and she smoothed her gown as though nothing had happened. "That is your final word."

It was not a question. She knew as well as he that there was no more to be said. He did not answer, but gave her space as she brushed a hand over her cheek, and raised her eyes to meet his briefly.

Brief it was. She bowed her head, and curtseyed. "Then, goodnight to you, Balinor."

"Goodnight, my Lady."

Nimueh turned, and walked away before he could bow or incline his head. He watched her go, watched her hurry away from him, back towards the hall of ceremonies. With a deep, steadying breath, he ran a hand back through his hair, long fingers trembling slightly.

What was wrong with him? She was a Priestess. What interest she could possibly, truly have in him, he could not fathom. He did not have the right have any interest in her, let alone follow up on it. Not yet.

He shook his head at himself, and let his hand fall to his side. He really was an idiot.

An idiot who needed to talk to someone.

With another steadying breath, he turned and started off down the Eastern corridor in the opposite direction to the hall. To the left, and to an area of the castle frequented only by guards, and those who had done wrong.

* * *

Nimueh did not look back at him as she strode away. She raised a hand to brush her hair back from her face, feeling her cheeks burn in embarrassment, and irritation at herself. What was wrong with her? To throw herself at someone so...

Balinor was right. She did not know him, just as he did not know her yet. Why, then, did she feel such a connection to him? Why did she see him as-

She gasped, pulled roughly to the left as a hand shot out from a junction to grasp her arm and pull her into a pool of shadows just off the main corridor.

She did not need to see her assailant to know their identity. The touch conveyed all that it needed to.

Nyneve released her, veritably throwing down her wrist. She turned on Nimueh with a scowl of deep rage. "Foolish girl. What do you think you are doing?"

Nimueh fixed her eyes squarely on the ground, but she did not try to hide the defiance burning in them, nor her frown. Neither did she answer, well aware of what it was that Nyneve referred to.

The High Priestess lower her own head that she stared her charge in the face, her voice a whisper filled with rasping anger. "Have you no shame? You would gamble your virtue so? Have I taught you nothing?"

"I know very well what you have taught me." Nimueh replied hotly, attempting to turn her back on her mistress and fold her arms. Nyneve would not allow it, grasping Nimueh's wrist in sharp fingers and dragging her back to face her.

"Do not purport to ignore me, child." She hissed, pulling Nimueh closer that they stared on another directly in the eye.

For a long time, neither looked away. High Priestess and Priestess stared one another out, neither willing to back down. At length, Nyneve softened, and she released Nimueh's wrist, though she did not break her stare. "You have power, Nimueh. Of all my students, you are the most promising. That is why I cannot watch you disregard your training so."

"And what of my choice in the matter?" Nimueh drew herself up that she looked down her nose at her mistress, her arms folded tightly over her chest. "Do I not get to choose?"

Nyneve smiled, thought it was more akin to a smirk. "You do. You know well that you do. However, now is not the time to make that choice. You must wait for Beltane's night to do so, as you well know."

"And what if I have already made my choice?"

A laugh, a cackle escaped Nyneve. She shook her head. "The fledgling Dragonlord? Oh, my girl. That is an ill informed choice indeed."

"I am soon to come of age." Nimueh argued, her tone petulant. She tilted her head, gauging the High Priestess' reaction. "As is Balinor. By Beltane's night, we will both have passed that milestone." She took a step closer to her mistress, raising defiant eyes to meet hers, "He is a peasant, but he has magic, Nyneve. Powerful magic. He is a sorcerer-"

"I am well aware of what the boy is." Nyneve cut her off. "More so than you, I now see."

Nimueh narrowed her eyes, examining Nyneve's expression – her stance, in search of something, anything that may give her an insight into what the woman may be thinking. She found none. Effort to touch her mistress' mind failed also, her attempts meeting with a wall of stone.

"What do you mean?"she relented, curiousity getting the better of her. She did not like to be uninformed.

"That boy," Nyneve began in a low tone, part mindful of any who may be listening, part mocking of the arrogant girl in front of her, "is more than a sorcerer. Despite Rion's attempts to shield him and his true nature from outsiders. He is a warlock."

Nimueh stared, her lips parted in surprise, and wonder. Balinor had been born with magic? But he... he had said -

'It just started happening when I was fourteen summers.'

The look on her face encouraged Nyneve to go on, no matter what may be binding her to silence. "He is more even than that. The young Dragonlord-to-be is a beginning. He is a means to an end. His path is mapped out for him more clearly, more certainly than you could ever know. And yes, he has powerful magic. It is not him that you have such attraction to, but his magic. It is unlike anything you have ever encountered before, is it not?"

Nimueh looked at her mistress in astonishment. Uncertainty ran rampant within her. "How do you know?"

"It radiates from him. Surrounds him. He glows with it. Magic is woven through every inch of space he moves through. Always with him. Always around him. But it is not _his_ magic that clings to him so."

_Not his magic?_ Nimueh pursed her lips, not sure that she understood. "Are you saying that he does not possess magic of his own?" She ventured tentatively, surprisingly worried by the idea.

"He has magic." Nyneve smirked. "make no mistake. The boy has power. But he has more than just his own, even if he cannot touch it."

Something sparked, at the back of Nimueh's mind. Something she had read once, as a child on the Isle. Long before coming to Camelot. "... Two magics in one." She murmured. That was significant. There had never before been one with such a strange gift, entirely useless as it may be. But it was not meant to be used. Not as magic normally was. It was intended as something else. For something else. It heralded something, but she did not know what. It had been written in the text she had studied, but not in the common tongue, nor the language of magic. It had been recorded in words she could not read. It had been written in the Dragontongue.

"Your peasant boy is a stepping stone." Nyneve told her, all seriousness in her tone. "He was placed on this Earth with an express purpose. Before you try, child, know that you cannot understand it. Just as he himself cannot yet know it. But I have seen it. The knowledge of events to come has been revealed to me by the Goddess, as she gave me the seer's gift in her wisdom. What is to come must not be averted, though the boy labours not under the will of the Triple Goddess, but that of the White Goddess. It is by her power that his destiny will be fulfilled."

Nimueh said nothing. She did not know what to say. It had been clear to her, when she touched Balinor's magic that it was unlike anything she had felt before. His control of it, for one supposedly so new to the gift had seemed incredible. Yet, if what Nyneve said was true, then it had been a part of him for far longer than he realised.

It astonished her to believe that there was so much more to such a simple boy, but it was undeniable. It did not change her decision.

"You will not object, then?" She questioned Nyneve, her manner haughty, asserting herself against her mistress. "If I am still to name him as my choice on Beltane's night?"

The High Priestess' smile was unnerving. Nyneve folded her arms and looked down on her favourite charge from her greater height. "You may name his as your choice by all means. But you shall not have him."

"If he is my choice then there is no reason why not." Nimueh tossed her head. "I should have thought you would be pleased that I choose such a powerful warlock."

"And I would expect nothing less of you, Nimueh. However," Nyneve dropped her arms to her sides and fixed the young Priestess with a look of both sympathy and dare, "as I have said. His destiny is clearly mapped out. You can try, my dear, but you will not have him. He is meant for another. Not for you."

"And why should fate determine everything in our lives?" Nimueh demanded, a deep frown on her face. "If I want him, I _will_ have him. I refuse to allow destiny to take from me that which I am so sure of. If I do not want it so, then it shall not be so."

Nyneve's smile at that was genuine. Warm, and kind as she laid an affectionate hand on her charge's shoulder. "Such arrogance. It is all that kept you from selection to the Disir." She searched Nimueh's stone face, finding no hint of withdrawal or of doubt. The girl believed her own words. Nyneve's smile became a grin. "Very well, my girl. Defy destiny. Have your peasant boy on Beltane's night. See where your arrogance will lead you. I guarantee, if the little Dragonlord gives himself to you, then I shall relinquish my title and make _you_ Sorceress to the Court of Camelot instead."

"You may mock me, mistress." Nimueh returned, brimming with cool confidence and quiet elation at her small victory. "But _I_ guarantee. Balinor _will_ be mine, and there is nothing that you can do about it."

"Believe me, child. I need not do a thing. I need not lift a finger. Fate will have its way and thwart your efforts. Though I await its methods with interest."

Nimueh did not say anything. She raised her chin in a gesture of defiance and walked away from her mistress, towards the hall.

Nyneve watched her go, wide smile of amusement on her face. Until Nimueh disappeared around the corner at the head of the corridor, out of sight. Once she was gone, the High Priestess let her smile fall. She turned to look out of the window. Her hands clasped over her chest, she gazed at the waxing moon in the dark sky above.

The gift of the seer was indeed within her, and it was powerful. Night after night her dreams were disturbed with events to come. Far from now, in a time when she would be there to see them come to pass, and in a time when she would not. Perhaps in that she was lucky. She had foreseen her end, and it left her cold. But it was not her own death, but what would follow thereafter that turned her blood to ice in her veins.

Flames and blood. Hatred ad death. When all about would be sorrow, and ashes. So many ashes.

A darkness was coming, one that would last for more than twenty years. It would be long, and it would be terrible. It could not be averted, and it could not be changed. It must be allowed to happen. For it was not the darkness, but something else waiting beyond that was important. Something that could only come to pass, should destiny proceed as planned. For it was from the deep darkness that the light of hope would rise. The flip of the coin that decided the fate of the people of magic, and those without.

She had seen it, and it was so, so important. And she knew. The knowledge was inescapable. The young Dragonlord-in-waiting, and Camelot's Prince must live. They must be protected, or the world that she had foreseen could never be born.

It must be, or all was darkness.

* * *

Very few people came to this part of the castle. They had no reason to. Beyond the guards stationed at the foot of the stairs, nobody came here by choice.

Nobody except Balinor.

He offered a friendly nod to the two men playing dice at the table, smiling when they returned the gesture, and passed by on his way without worry or question.

He turned down a steep flight of stone steps beneath and entryway decorated with a beautiful frieze of dragons in flight, the floor either side laid with a variety of different offerings. Instinctively he reached out and grasped the torch, from where he knew that it would be, and lifted it from its bracket on the wall.

"_Bryne.*_"

Flames flickered into existence, lighting the torch and the stairs in a warm glow. Without a backward glance, Balinor descended the steps into the Earth beneath Camelot.

Many times he had made this trip. More than he could remember in the two years since his arrival in the city. The cold steps beneath his feet were ingrained in his mind; every drop, every lip. Every nick and blemish. In their stone he could see with the soles of his feet better than he could in the torch's glow.

Before long the smooth, sculpted stairs gave way to rough-hewn rock. He stepped out into a towering cave, lit softly by a beam of white moonlight from somewhere high above.

The caves below Camelot were no secret. Neither were their purpose for time immemorial. The people were grateful for it, the offerings left around the entrance at the head of the steps laid on their behalf by the guards. Not the type of gifts that one would picture in terms of the caves' occupants, but fresh cut flowers and garlands, the best needlework, and finest linens that could be acquired on small wages. Not what was to be expected, neither for the reasons expected.

The offerings were not left to appease. Not left out of fear. They were placed there with feelings of gratitude, to one who served their Kingdom and safeguarded their lives from threat.

Balinor stepped out from the stairwell through the open iron gate, and onto the ledge overlooking the expanse of the cave.

He hesitated, and raised his head to look around for the one he had come seeking.

"Kharis?"

A cool breeze blew through the caves, but no answer came with it. Perhaps the caves were empty tonight?

Unsure, he tried again. "Kharis? Are you here?"

A sound below, like rock slipping over rock reverberated up through the cavern, followed by a deep sigh of warm air.

Balinor shivered lightly, the warmth glancing over his cool skin in the deep atmosphere around him. He did not step back, nor shy away as the darkness beneath the ledge stirred, and with a rush of wind and a thunderous beat of wings the head and claws of a great green dragon swept over the lip of the ledge.

The creature's massive claws crashed down either side of the relatively tiny boy, shaking the ground beneath his feet, but he did not flinch. He did not blink in fright or surprise.

Towering above him, the mighty beast raised its head, gazing down on him with thoughtful, deep brown eyes, blinking softly in the torchlight.

Balinor craned his neck to gaze back at her, a warm smile tugging at his lips. For the dragon was a female. Even to one who was not aware already in the soft line of her delicate head and long, slender neck and body. They were surely feminine features and belied the sharpness of the long, twisted horns atop her skull, and the razor-like quality of her black, shining claws.

She was Kharis. Charm, grace and kindness in the Dragontongue.

Tentatively, Balinor took a step forward, raising the torch a little that he could better see her face. "You did not come when I first called."

Kharis inclined her great head a little that she looked down into Balinor's confused face. Her eyes searched the boy as they always did when he stood before her, searching for any injury, and emotional unease. "I was sleeping." She returned levelly, only peace in her melodic voice that seemed always to echo up from the very air itself.

Beneath her gaze Balinor winced. "M'sorry."

She chuckled lightly, her warm breaths stirring his hair around his cheeks, chasing away the persistent chill of the caves. "I bear no ill feeling towards being woken by you, youngling. As you well know."

He smiled openly at that, and took a moment to bask in the warmth her proximity always brought.

She did not let him bask long, her smile fading to a look of concern as she tilted her head to regard him in thought. "Now, tell me why it is that you have come to see me at this late hour. And do not think to lie about its lateness, as the hatchlings have long fallen to their dreams, as you should have also."

Balinor swallowed, and looked up at her, his father's dragon, and mulled briefly over what it was that he needed to say to her. He shifted his feet nervously, uncomfortable, and crouched to lay the torch on the ground. Exactly why he had come, he could not be sure. He didn't really know. He had just felt awkward, and sad, and had needed to see her.

Just like that, as though sensing his thoughts, Kharis lowered her head and gently pushed her cheek against the side of his body. She understood what he needed, just as she always did. He looped his arms around her muzzle as far as he could reach and laid his head against her broad forehead.

She shared a bond with his father that ran deep. Balinor had seen her for the first time when his father called out in the clearing in the woods outside Engerd. The powerful, yet graceful creature who answered his father's first call, and submitted to bow without command.

She had waited a long time for Rion. Seven hundred years from her hatching. Waiting for the day she would hear his call and respond. The one Dragonlord who would be hers and hers alone. Because while any Dragonlord could command her, only Rion's voice could outweigh them and all that they commanded of her.

It had been that day, when she had risen from her greeting bow to her Dragonlord, that her eyes first met those of the small, awkward creature now stood in her embrace. Balinor, son of Rion. One day to inherit his father's gifts and become a Dragonlord himself. She had known then what her presence would mean to Rion's youngling, and so she comforted him willingly, for in his own way he was as vulnerable and needy as the hatchlings placed under her tutelage by his father.

"Come, young one." She murmured to him in her ethereal tones and raised her head from his arms to perch herself comfortably atop the rocks beneath the ledge. "Tell me what troubles you so."

Balinor made his way to her that he may take a seat on the rocks against her warm chest where it rested against the lip of the ledge. He drew his knees up to his chest and circled his arms around them.

Kharis settled herself tighter against the ledge that she pressed reassuringly to Balinor's back, and gave an encouraging rumble deep in her chest.

"I..." Balinor frowned at himself, and shook his head. "I made a fool of myself tonight."

Quietly, hesitantly, he let it all out. Everything that worried him, upset him, he confided it in Kharis. All the while the great green dragon listened carefully, in total silence. She did not speak as her precious youngling bared his soul, but absorbed it all with a warmth and understanding that Balinor imagined one could only receive from their mother. Because that was almost what this gentle, unfathomably old and wise being was. She was the closest thing to a mother he had ever known. As always when he felt the rhythmic thump of her strong heartbeat against his back, and sensed the magic that coursed through her as his own did him, felt her warm breaths in his hair, he became relaxed, and fully at ease.

Kharis did what she knew that she needed to do. She listened to him in the hopes of lifting some of the troubles from his slight, but already so heavily burdened shoulders. Because one day, maybe soon, he was going to learn how burdened he truly was.

* * *

It must be well into the early hours. Though it was not yet lightening outside.

Balinor made his way along the corridor in something akin to a march, his fists balled at his sides and arms swinging with each step. The castle was quiet. Only the candle flames to be heard as they caught and swayed in the drafts circulating the halls.

The feast must have finished some time ago, and all present either headed to their beds, or in the case of any servants lucky enough to have the following day to themselves, the tavern.

Himself, he made for Gaius' chambers, intent on getting to his bed and avoiding anyone who may have seen his display at the feast. He really did not want to talk about it. Though talk about it he had.

Kharis knew all of the details, everything that had run through his head, and she knew how he had felt afterwards. He had spent a good hour and a half telling her all that weighed on his mind, and she had told him not to worry about it. He had nothing _to_ worry about. Even on the subject of Nimueh, she had assured him that it was al perfectly normal. They were both young, and from her understanding of these things speaking as a dragon, emotionally vulnerable due to their stage in life. That was her dragon version of his father's reaction to thirteen year old Balinor marching up to him and declaring that he had hair in places there had not been previously, and asking for an explanation. The thought made Balinor cringe, now. At the time he had been rather confused and needed to know what was going on and if the hair would spread over the entirety of his body like a rash of some sort. He did not particularly want to be that hairy.

After he had finished pouring his heart out, he strongly suspected that he had fallen asleep against Kharis and that she had let him sleep for an hour or two. While he felt much refreshed, he was still very tired and emotionally drained after the evening's events. Bed sounded like a wonderful idea.

Turning the corner onto the corridor containing the griffin staircase, Balinor halted and wrinkled his nose. A little way ahead, a pair of familiar boots stuck out from behind one of the pillars. With a shake of his head , he started towards them, coming to lean on the pillar and look down at their owner, his arms folded over his chest.

Uther sat in a heap against the stone banister leading up the spiral staircase above, his head lolled uncomfortably to one side, fast asleep.

Balinor sighed, and nudged the heel of Uther's boot with the toe of his own.

"Hey. Pizzle face."

The snoring Prince drew a deep breath, and lazily opened his eyes. Apparently without control of his muscles, Uther rolled his head against the banister that he looked up at Balinor. At the sight of his friend, a dopey, wide smile broke out over his face. "Balinor. Where'd you...?" No end was coming for that sentence it seemed, as Uther coughed, and blinked sluggishly.

Balinor winced. "Gods, Uther. How much d'you have to drink?"

Uther's head lolled forwards, but not so much that he could not see his friend. He raised an arm and set a viciously pointing finger on the boy before him. "I am not sure, but I'll have you know it was a lot."

"What are you doing on the floor?" Standing there, making demands, his arms folded over his chest, Balinor suddenly felt more like Uther's father than his seventeen year old friend.

"Looking for my chambers."

"You won't find them down there. Where's Edmund?"

"Godwyn's got him, and..." Uther's pointing finger waved feebly in the air a moment before falling to rest in his lap with a slap. "...I don't know." And he looked as though he was about to fall asleep again.

Balinor huffed, "Ye Gods" and bent to grab Uther under his arms and drag him away from the banister.

"What're y'doing?" Uther slurred, and made a half-hearted attempt to slap Balinor's face.

Balinor managed to jerk his head away just in time to avoid it, and began to manhandle his stupid royal git of a best friend into a position where he could duck under Uther's arm. "Escorting you back to your chambers, my liege." He answered testily, and just about managed to heave Uther to his feet. "Where you can go to sleep, or vomit with abandon into the nearest suitable container while I hold back your beautiful, shining, simply luxurious hair. Lean on me."

"Unhand me." Uther slapped at him again. "Don't tell me what to do. You're a peasant."

"And you're a tosser. Do you see me bringing it up every five minutes? No. So shut up and lean on me."

Uther did not actually object again. In fact, he did not speak again at all. Even as they traversed the corridors, reached his chambers and he allowed Balinor to put him to bed. He was asleep and snoring like a swine the moment his head touched the pillow.

Balinor hummed and haahed to himself. Leant on the post at the end of Uther's bed, he tried to put together some kind of plan of action for himself. Go home. Go to bed. Go to sleep.

It suddenly seemed less of a good idea. Not the bed part, but the home segment. By this time Gaius would be well and truly bedded down for the night and probably be fast asleep, snoring like a hog. He would not be pleased if woken, as Balinor knew from past experience, and would heap chores on his assistant in quiet vengeance the following day.

The idea of waking Gaius, and having to explain where he had been did not appeal at all. So Balinor sighed to himself, and ran a hand back through his hair. He rounded Uther's bed to the side unoccupied by the twat, and lay down on his back on top of the covers.

Lying there, his fingers threaded upon his chest, he stared up at the canopy and waited for sleep to claim him.

He didn't even remove his boots.

* * *

_*Bryne – Burn _

**_*Notes: _**_The other half of__ part III. From here on there is actual story, so fear not. Again, anything that doesn't make sense will be explained eventually. There is a plan! This story is a lot of fun to write :) I may be falling in love with writing drunk Uther. _


	5. I: Chapter V

- Five -

* * *

Exactly what time it was when he finally woke, Balinor could not be sure. He could hardly be thought of as orientated when sounds of activity dragged him from dreamland. It took him rather longer than it really ought just to work out that he was in Uther's chambers and not his own room, and that the sounds to have woken him were generated by somebody moving about the room. Blinking, he raised his hands to run them over his face and breathed a deep sigh before forcing himself to life and propping himself up on his elbows.

Scurrying about the prince's chamber - more accurately the table - was a young man Balinor did not recognise. Clearly the short, fair-haired creation was a servant. He dressed like one, and was doing the job of one as he set the table ready for breakfast in a manner that, unfortunately for the boy, paled in comparison to the sheer professional majesty of Edmund's daily ministrations. That did not bode well if the lad was there in search of possible promotion. He did seem anxious to impress the prince, going by the way he snatched up a platter and began meticulously polishing it. A shame that anything even vaguely edible on the table would be inhaled before Uther could appreciate the set up of it at all.

Yawning, Balinor swung his legs around to stand and pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. As an after thought, he turned and jabbed Uther's snoring form in the back with one finger. "Oi."

The prince stirred, but did not snatch at his pillow to beat his friend with it. Instead he turned onto his back and blinked up at Balinor with bleary eyes.

"What time is it?"

The tousled peasant threw a thoughtless glance at the latticed windows. "Light out."

"That's not a time."

"Well past dawn."

Though that was not a time either, it held some resonance with Uther as the boy rubbed furiously at his eyes and hurriedly squirmed his way up into a sitting position. "What?"

His highness was feeling a little delicate this morning, by the looks of things. Panicky as well, judging by how wide and unfocused his rapidly blinking eyes were.

"I have to get up." He kicked back his covers and scrambled to his feet. "Father and Godwyn will be beginning their talks this morning. I'm supposed to be in attendance."

That sounded incredibly boring. Balinor wrinkled his nose in distaste. "I don't have to be there, do I?"

The look of utter incredulity, tinged with perhaps more than a little disdain that Uther threw him was almost as much of a relief as the answer itself. "What _poss-_ib-le reason could you have to be there?" He snorted, and folded his arms over his chest, all haste apparently forgotten in the face of his disbelief. "You know next to nothing about trade agreements. On top of that, your stupid face would just distract everyone and no work would get done."

"You mean distract _you_?"

Uther made no answer to that, taking instead to glaring around after the young servant currently striving to get the prince's clothing together. "What on Earth are you _doing_?! Where are my clothes? Why are they not already prepared?" He let out a petulant huff, unaware and uncaring that the poor boy appeared rather flustered as he approached with an armful of unsorted clothing straight out of the wardrobe. Despite yelling at him, the boy's presence seemed to slip Uther's mind entirely as he once again addressed Balinor.

"_I_ on the other hand, have to be there. It is expected of me. To sit there and listen with at least half a brain to the dreary details while my head feels as though the smith has spent all night pounding on it with a hammer." As though in terrible pain, Uther pressed a hand to his temple and groaned loudly. "He has yet to cease. In fact I believe he may have moved inside and set up shop. Ohhh..."

Balinor folded his arms over his chest, not able to fight the smug smirk spreading steadily across his lips. Even as the poor servant boy struggled with Uther's rather ornate waistcoat from the night before, unable to work out what was buttons and what was decoration. "Oh dear. Does the fearsome prince actually have a hangover? I _am_ sorry. Now you understand how us poor mortals feel the following morning."

"Do shut up." He winced, before throwing a surreptitious glance at his pet fool. "What of you? Perhaps you didn't indulge in the drink last night, but I seem to recall hearing some rather interesting chatter about a painfully thin boy and one of the young priestesses glimpsed getting rather closely acquainted in the Eastern corridor. Care to explain?"

Immediately Balinor's face flushed red, Uther crowed internally. It _was_ true! Rejoicing in his discovery, he set a finger on Balinor, a grin tugging at his lips despite his awful head pain. "Ha! Nobody would have believed it – least of all me – I demand an explanation right now."

"Nothing to explain." Balinor muttered, and folded his arms over his chest defensively.

"You're not getting out of it that easily, Balinor. I want details."

"You're not going to get them." Balinor raised his head and stared back at Uther with a remarkably neutral expression despite his current colouring. "There's nothing to tell. Not for _you _to hear, anyway."

"Don't be a spoilsport!"

"Nothing to spoil. No marriage ceremonies on the horizon-"

"Bal_i_nor!" To say that the prince was shocked was an understatement. If he screeched any louder, Balinor's eardrums would explode and the rats tucked up in the walls would come out of hiding in search of their kin. "I didn't think you had it in you. Am I to believe that you would... experience one of our priestesses and not agree to finalise anything?"

"Calm down, Uther." Balinor rolled his eyes. "I didn't 'experience' anything last night."

"Hm." The prince shook his head lightly. "I should have known. You'll be an old man before you lose your innocence. Certainly no time soon as the only woman to ever show any interest in you will be absent from Camelot for some time. You are aware that the Priestesses will have left already?"

Balinor was silent. He mused on that idea a moment. Every year the priestesses embarked on a pilgrimage to Côr y Cewri*. Was that why Nimueh had been so forward in her advances? Because she knew that she would be leaving the next day?

Really. Uther felt like throwing his hands in the air. How could somebody be so stupid? Exasperated with, and annoyed by the insolent, simply idiotic serf in front of him, Uther snarled and yanked his shirtsleeve away from the fumbling servant and bellowed at the boy in a tone of utter murder, "What are you doing!? Is there something wrong with your brain that you cannot complete even the _simplest_ of tasks?! Where is Edmund? At this hour of the day, Godwyn must be finished with him. Where is he?! Where is _my_ manservant?!"

The poor serving boy looked absolutely terrified. He dropped his eyes from the irate prince to set them deferentially on the ground and openly quaked with fear, his small hands clasped behind his back.

Balinor huffed aloud, the whole exchange striking him as completely unnecessary, and stepped closer to Uther to start on the buttons of his seething friend's waistcoat. "Don't be such a git." He chastised the prince, offering the shaking servant a small smile of encouragement and a nod to dismiss him.

The servant fled the room without looking back, grateful of the reprieve and doubtless harbouring no more misguided designs on serving the prince.

Balinor waited until the chamber door was firmly closed, and the boy well away before speaking again and risking inciting Uther's ire any further. "Just because you have a headache doesn't give you the right to go around bellowing at everyone. Up arms."

Uther raised his arms above his head and wriggled a bit as Balinor helped him shuck his tunic and waistcoat in one go. "I am the crown Prince. I will bellow at whoever I so wish."

"You would, even if you were not the prince. You're just a loud-mouth, Uther. You put the cyhyraeth* to shame."

The prince did not say anything to that. He watched in a thoughtful silence as Balinor sorted a fresh tunic from the pile of clothing the poor servant boy had flung on the bed.

"... I'm not _that_ bad, am I?" He ventured after a beat, his voice surprisingly small and uncharacteristic.

Balinor did not answer, electing instead to shake the creases out of the tunic in his hands.

"It is my right to issue commands!" Uther snapped, incensed by the silence.

"There's a difference between issuing commands and screaming at somebody because you're in a bad mood." Balinor returned gruffly. "You have no respect for the feelings of others."

"What would you know about it? You're so soft spoken, you may as well be mute."

Again, Balinor chose not to answer. Sometimes he did wonder what the point was.

The lack of reaction got under the prince's skin. He ran a hand through his hair and huffed loudly. "He is a servant!"

"I'm a lowly peasant." Balinor reminded him bluntly, and helped him on with his tunic. "Care to shout at me as well?"

The words 'don't tempt me' came muffled from somewhere in the tunic's depths, but but they seemed somewhat half-hearted.

Balinor pretended that he hadn't heard them. "It doesn't matter what station the poor boy holds. You hurt his feelings."

"And what would you have me do, Balinor?" Uther's head emerged from the tunic's neck hole, a scowl on his face. "Mollycoddle him? Hold him and assure him that his terrible service was good? Heaven forfend, put up with it?"

"Not howling at him because _you_ are in a foul mood would be a start." Snatching up the prince's leather waistcoat, Balinor thrust it at him carelessly. "Respect the fact that he has feelings and that barking at him is liable to injure them."

"I am the prince." Uther reiterated, disbelieving. "One day I will be King of Camelot. What type of kingdom will this be if I am not respected?"

"And shouting at people will make them respect you?"

"A king demands respect."

"Then he shall not have mine."

Uther glared at Balinor, his eyes gradually widening to a stare. "Excuse me?"

Balinor gave a casual shrug, already in the process of sorting a pair of trousers from the assorted laundry. "A king that demands my respect won't get it. Who I give my respect to is one of the few things in life I get to decide. I will not give it to a king who demands it of his people, but to one who earns it."

Uther was silent. He frowned, watching his idiotic, _idealistic_ peasant with uncertainty as he took the proffered trousers and Balinor left him be to stride across the room to review himself in the mirror. As much as he called his peasant all manner of names, and as much as he would never admit it, Uther knew that he would not be without Balinor. The young Dragonlord-to-be tempered him, cooled him and gave him the pause for thought and self-review he sometimes sorely needed.

To begin with, Uther had not seen it that way. Balinor was simply a novelty. He was a new toy to play with, and keep entertained by. Somehow, over the course of the past two years, he had become more than that. He had become a friend.

Uther lowered his eyes to the garment in his hand, his temper receding. Balinor was the best and truest friend he had ever had. Never had Uther met someone so patient, or so understanding. The very fact that Balinor was still hanging around him was a testament to his never-ending well of patience. It was unlikely that anything could make the laid-back boy snap. For that, Uther was grateful. He was not afraid to admit that Balinor was his friend. In fact, he was proud of it.

Though he would never say such a thing to Balinor's face. Everyone else knew. Balinor probably knew, too. He knew almost everything, after all. What he didn't know, he would usually find out. It was most unlikely to be a secret from him.

To hear that there was a possibility of perhaps losing his friend's respect? It left Uther feeling surprisingly cold inside. For the life of him, he could not understand it. He cared little for the opinions of most, but he cared very much about Balinor's. It bothered him after that flat statement concerning respect. All of his life Uther had been decided what kind of king he would be. A great one. The greatest. Respected by his people, and celebrated by them. It was something he had never questioned. His people would respect and revere him because he was their king, because of the authority he showed. Yet, being the loudest and most forceful was suddenly not enough?

Perhaps others would afford him respect because of his status, but Balinor would not. With all that the idiot's words had thrown into disarray in his mind, one thing remained entirely clear to him: He wanted to be the type of king Balinor could respect. With a small shake of his head, he swallowed. Since when had the opinion of one so far beneath him become so damn important?

He had to wonder, exactly what kind of king he would be in reality. A good one, certainly. Fair, and capable of making good decisions. As long as Balinor remained at his side, the latter would definitely be true. His friend was nothing if not level-headed. In fact, Uther did worry briefly, exactly what type of king he would be without his faithful, loyal confidante beside him to quell his temper.

That worry was only fleeting, chased away by a mental scoff. Balinor would always be there. That was something Uther knew for a fact.

… One he was grateful for.

"What are you waiting for?" Balinor's voice snapped him from his inner musings. The gangly idiot had turned away from the mirror to level a disapproving frown at him, combing those stupid long fingers mindlessly through the knots in his thick, dark locks. "I thought you were snarling because you're late? And I'm not putting _those_ on you." He nodded towards the trousers in the prince's hand. "I'm sure you're capable of _that_ much, at least."

"Shut up and get out." Uther growled, so low that it was almost a mutter and shrugged Balinor off in favour of examining, and deciphering, his trousers.

Raising an eyebrow, Balinor shook his head lightly and retreated into the corridor to await the clearly baffled prince. Perhaps he ought to sit down somewhere? This looked as though it could take some time.

* * *

Uther found himself wishing that Balinor would slow down. It had to be today of all days that the clumsy oaf decided it wasn't necessary to tumble over everything every few seconds, didn't it?

Groaning quietly, he raised a hand to his head. Why did he drink so much the previous night? This was all Johfrit's fault. It had to be. In no way could it be his own.

Mounting the steps into the tower, he trailed Balinor along the corridor to the physician's chambers. His pet peasant had flat out refused to let him go anywhere until he had gotten one of Gaius' foul hangover remedies down him. The way he was feeling this morning, he was actually quite looking forward to necking the vile potion.

Suddenly, a wave of dizziness swept over him, the prince finding himself pulled up in a start to avoid crashing into Balinor's back and avoid impaling himself on one of his friend's razor sharp shoulder blades. The scrawny twat had apparently stopped to allow an assortment of guards past.

Balinor frowned, worry hitting him to note that they had come out of Gaius' chambers. "What's going on?"

One of the men halted and opened his mouth to answer Balinor. His composure crumbled to see prince Uther hovering over the boy's shoulder. He dropped into a stiff bow. "It's Lord Godwyn." He answered in a low tone. "He's been poisoned."

Uther's head shot up, a look of horrified disbelief plastered across his face. "Poisoned?" That was absurd. Not in Camelot. Not among friends. "Who would do such a thing?"

The guard gave another bow, aware that his fellows were leaving him behind. "We are under orders to arrest his servant."

Both Uther and Balinor looked at one another in surprise and horror. Godwyn had not brought a personal servant with him. Instead he had been assigned -

"Edmund." Uther murmured, and shook his head. "That is preposterous! Edmund has been my manservant for years. Most of my life. He would never do such a thing. It is not in his nature. Who gave these orders?"

The guard shifted uncomfortably. "The King, my lord." With that, he took his leave and hurried on his way after the others down the stairs.

The two boys let him go and hurried along the corridor to Gaius' chambers.

* * *

They burst through the door to find Godwyn laid out unconscious on the patient's cot to one side of the room, Gaius hovering over him, examining him. Constantine was present also, wringing his hands concernedly at his fellow king's side.

At their noisy entrance Gaius looked up briefly to set eyes on his assistant. "Balinor. I need a tincture of yarrow and dandelion as quickly as possible."

Balinor nodded and hurried to the workbench.

Uther crossed the room to his father's side and stared down at Godwyn in shocked surprise and discomfort. "What happened, father?"

"His meal was poisoned." Constantine murmured, a quiver of anger lacing his voice.

"... And Edmund is suspected?"

The King looked up at his son, his brows drawn together. The quiet disbelief in Uther's voice was clear, and fully expected. Edmund had been his manservant for likely as long as Uther could remember. He had been approaching his sixth summer when Edmund was appointed to the position. Understandably he would not want to believe his servant capable of this.

"The evidence is clear, I am afraid, Uther." Constantine sighed wearily, and shook his head. "Edmund is the only one who had opportunity to tamper with the meal after it left the kitchens. It was prepared by the cook and head kitchen maid themselves. Edmund himself admits that the meal never left his sight."

"Yet neither of them are under suspicion?"

"It was tasted before leaving the kitchens in Edmund's hands. The boy who did so shows no signs of poison."

So Edmund was the only one who could have poisoned the meal? Uther did not want to believe that, Balinor could see. Biting his lip he looked away from the prince and back to his work grinding the plants in the mortar before him.

"How is he?" The prince gestured to Godwyn.

It was Gaius who fielded the question, a deep frown on his face as he did. "His condition is grave. All of the symptoms he is displaying suggest that he has been administered a heavy dose of digitalis."

The look of uncertainty on Uther's face was clear to Balinor at the workbench. "Foxglove." He translated for the stumped prince, aware that his voice trembled around the word.

Gaius gave a nod, quiet pride in his assistant's remembering underlying his overriding concern for his patient briefly. "It is a potent poison in large doses."

Uther swallowed. "Gaius. How long does he have?"

The silence, though only of a few beats, was telling. "I estimate about four hours. At the most. His body has already begun to shut down."

"Is there nothing you can do?"

"I can concoct a solution to flush out the stomach, and a draught to do the same to the digestive organs, but beyond that..." He raised his eyes to gaze across the room, his sight resting on Balinor, "His only hope may be magic."

Balinor looked up sharply, meeting his mentor's gaze, hand stilling, pestle resting in the mortar.

Constantine looked Gaius in the eye. "Gaius?"

The physician shook his head. "My magic is not powerful enough, not focussed enough for such a task. Not now that the poisoning has advanced so."

The King closed his eyes, cold fear nestling in the pit of his stomach. "The Priestesses have already left on their pilgrimage. They would never be reached and return within four hours." He let out a shaky sigh, and looked to Rion's boy where the youngster stared back at his king in alarm. "Can you do it, boy?" Constantine asked, well aware of the slight jump that came from being directly addressed by him. "Can you save this man's life?"

Balinor stuttered, "I-I..." and swallowed, well aware of the three pairs of eyes on him, scrutinising him hopefully. "I don't know, Sire." He managed after a moment, and let his eyes fall from the King to Godwyn's still form. "I can try."

"Then do so." Constantine ordered him with a nod.

Hesitantly, Balinor returned the nod and poured the tincture he had concocted into a phial ready to be administered.

Gaius directed him to do so as he himself rose to find the correct book containing spells for purging poisons.

Uther watched with a growing sense of dread. Balinor had powerful magic at his disposal, he knew, but he also knew that his friend was entirely self-taught. Gaius offered him guidance and advice on keeping his magic in check, but he was generally without the opportunity to learn and improve. Uther had no idea how proficient the peasant boy was with healing magic. Neither did Balinor, Uther imagined. Mostly Balinor used his magic for convenience, or fun. This was something else entirely. Failure, too, as not an option.

He could not remain to watch the outcome. Godwyn was in the best hands. His concern now had to be Edmund, and finding the true poisoner.

"My Lord." He caught his father's attention, and offered a parting bow. "I shall take charge of the investigation and discover if there are any others involved."

Constantine nodded his approval. "Very well. Though I am surprised that you were not here to take charge earlier."

Uther winced slightly, shamefaced at the quietly barbed comment. His father was a fair and patient man, but he did not like to be disappointed. Uther did not make to explain himself, and again bowed to his father before turning on his heel and making to leave the room, still a little groggy under the influence of his banging headache.

He was stayed by Gaius' voice calling to him from the bookshelves. "If I may ask a favour, my prince. There is a healer in the lower town, named Alice. She will be able to assist. Please have somebody escort her here."

Uther nodded, and turned to go again, this time stayed by Balinor calling his name. With a glance at his friend where he now sat at the head of Godwyn's bed, carefully trickling the tincture down the stricken king's throat, Uther caught the brief glow of gold in Balinor's eyes, and raised his hand to catch the phial of blue liquid that leapt across the chamber from its shelf.

Without so much as a nod or verbal thanks, Uther left, uncorking the phial and knocking back the contents as he went. Balinor did not need thanks. He knew the grutnol prince was grateful.

He returned his attention to Godwyn and began massaging his knuckles against the king's throat to encourage swallowing. All the while he could feel Constantine's eyes on him, following his every movement.

He did not like this attention. It made him nervous. Magic was easy, yes, but what they wanted him to do put him under pressure. Magic came naturally to him. It was always there, thrumming alongside his pulse, ready to be used, an extension of himself like an extra arm or something. Gaius was looking through the books, Constantine wanted him to perform it perfectly. Balinor clenched his teeth and took a breath.

He had never performed a spell from a book before. Everything he knew he had learned from watching others around the citadel and town. His spells were only a few words, all learned by ear and played with to help him use his magic as he wanted to.

It was not something that he told people, though Uther knew it, and of course Gaius, but his father did not like him to use magic. Rion did not understand it, and he did not like it when Balinor used it. Seeing his son perform magic always left a strange... sad expression on his face that Balinor did not like to see. He had never learned why it should be that his father was averse to his using his gifts – Rion avoided talking about the issue. Balinor put it down to the loss of his mother, and how his having magic must remind his father of her.

That he had learnt any magic at all, Balinor knew his father was not particularly pleased about. Rion did understand, however, that it was necessary for him to use it. Even if it was just a little here and there, Balinor had to use his magic, or it created an excess and used itself, so to speak.

It had never been anything too drastic: pots shattering of their own accord, objects leaping off tables, doors slamming. In one instance the broth levitating itself out of the pan on the stove in their old house back in the village, but never anything more than irritating happenings. It made Balinor feel itchy, though. Like he had pins and needles under his skin all over his body if he tried to hold his magic in for too long. His father understood that much, and allowed him to use enough to get by. But he did not want his son to learn.

Therefore, being faced with this task, and the idea of using so much magic unsanctioned, and inevitably learning some new magic left Balinor feeling highly nervous, daunted, and guilty, but exceedingly excited.

Suddenly, Godwyn gave a small cough, and began taking short, wheezing breaths. Balinor froze, ice forming in his veins as the king struggled to breathe.

"What is it?" Constantine demanded, panic rising in his voice, "What's happening?"

Balinor shook his head, fear taking hold of him. He didn't know! "Gaius!"

"Here!" The physician was beside him, holding the open spell book in front of Balinor that he could read the necessary incantation. The boy visibly paled.

"I can't do that spell, Gaius." He blanched, staring at his mentor in terror. "It's too complicated."

Gaius shook his head hurriedly. "I know you have never cast a spell of this nature before, Balinor, but you must try. A man's life is at stake."

That really didn't help matters, but Gaius was right. Shaky, Balinor looked over the spell again, noting the longer words and their pronunciations in his head. He had never cast a spell of more than a few words before. This one in the book in front of him, surrounded by beautifully painted purple and white foxgloves and a rather disconcerting skull and crossbones was several sentences long. Not only was there the question of his actually managing to do it, his father...

Gaius was right, though. A man's life was at stake.

"Alright."

He moved to Godwyn's side, and leant forward over the stricken king. He clasped his hands in the air above Godwyn's chest.

Gaius moved to the other side of their patient and sat across from Balinor, holding the book up open against his chest that his assistant could read the spell.

Nerves jangled in Balinor's stomach, the eyes of his king and his mentor on him, the shallow, laboured breaths of the dying Lord Godwyn ringing in his ears. He didn't know if he could do this. Never before had he done anything this complicated with his magic, but Gaius and Constantine were right. He had to try. If he did not, then Godwyn would surely die. If there was anything that he could do to help, then he had to try.

Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath. He reached inside himself, searching for his magic by the warm, comforting feel of it, and met it as it rose to meet him. Balinor grasped it and pulled it to the surface.

"Áfeorme sé ater. Áflieme dréor glófa ond oflinn seó siþ sé ædre. Blód, þiet æt mín galdor. Neáde úre gegenga fram geþonc bónsele. Eftbót hine!"*

Balinor opened his eyes, irises burning gold as he looked down on Godwyn. His heart clenched to see no change in the ailing man.

"What's happened?" Constantine demanded, eyes fixed on the young sorcerer across from him. "Why has it not worked?"

Balinor paled, unable to look away from Godwyn as the man's breathing grew worse. "I-I don't know."

"Balinor." Gaius' gentle tone drew the boy to look at him. The physician held the spell book a little higher against his chest, and nodded encouragingly. "Calm yourself. Take your time, and try it again."

Take his time? How could he? Godwyn took a deep, shuddering breath as if to ram the point home. The man was dying. There was no time to take!

However Balinor tried to relax a little, and raised his hands over Godwyn's chest again. Calmly, carefully, he repeated the purging spell.

Again he felt his magic respond. Again, Godwyn did not. Despair filled Balinor. He looked to Gaius, whose brows were drawn together in concern. Again, it was Constantine who spoke.

"Why has it not worked?" He shot a look of command at Balinor. "Again, boy. Try it again."

With a small breath and a nod, Balinor did as he was told and repeated the spell. He felt his magic leap to him, yet again there was no effect. Godwyn did not improve and continued to worsen.

Constantine slammed a hand down on the edge of the cot, shocking Balinor to look up at him blinking wide, worried eyes.

"Do you not realise what his death will mean, boy?" The King demanded, his normally calm and level voice low, and dangerous. "To have been poisoned on Camelot soil – in this citadel – by one of our own servants? His allies will not view it as an assassin working alone. It will be seen as an act of war. Do you understand that?"

Dumbly, Balinor nodded.

Across the cot, Gaius shifted. "Sire-"

"Again."

Balinor complied. The spell did not. Panting, Balinor fell back in his chair, a thin sheen of sweat breaking out across his brow. His eyes did not leave his patient. All three were so focused on Godwyn, that they failed to notice Rion's entrance on the far side of the chamber.

Closing the door quietly behind him, the Dragonlord halted, his grave expression falling even further at the sight before him:

"Sire, I really must-"

Constantine cut Gaius off, rising to his feet to glare down at Balinor. "Damn you, boy. Again!"

Sweating, shaking, Balinor nodded, and took a couple of breaths to try and control his panting. His tried the spell again, his breathlessness growing worse as Godwyn's did, and once again fell back to slump in his chair as the magic had no effect. He was spent.

"Again, boy!" Constantine bellowed, panic clear in his voice. "Do you wish to see this man die? To see Camelot at war? Again!"

Balinor shook his head, unable to think straight. He felt as though he had nothing left; no more tries at the spell. He had given all that he had.

"Sire, he has nothing left to give." Gaius told the King gently, rising and laying a hand on Constantine's arm. "He has tried. That is all he could do."

"Godwyn cannot die, Gaius." Constantine stared at his fellow king, a slight tremble to his voice as he spoke. "He cannot, or many more will."

Rion started across the room, well aware of what it meant when the sadness left Constantine's expression, replaced by fire and aloofness as the King focused on Balinor again.

"Boy! Again!"

Balinor shook his head."

Constantine's expression twisted into one of unadulterated rage. "I said again!"

Balinor shook his head harder, raised his hands to press over his ears. Tears prickled at his eyes, his shaking breaths racking his body. He felt weak from exertion, though his magic still roiled inside him.

"Do you wish to see this kingdom at war? To see thousands dead and injured, more starving because of this man's death? Again!"

He didn't want to see any of that, but he had tried, and he had failed. He couldn't do it... but he could try again. The King was right. Godwyn couldn't die. Gaius believed that he could do it. He had to try again.

Barely able to keep himself from falling forward out of his chair, Balinor forced himself upright and leant forward to clasp his hands over Godwyn's chest one last time.

Rion halted at the foot of the ailing king's cot, mesmerised by the sight as his son took a deep breath, his shakes stilling, and began to speak.

Words fell from Balinor's tongue. They were not the words of the spell he had spoken previously, but something else entirely. Gaius almost lost his grip on the book, sitting up and staring wide-eyed at his assistant, understanding the words neither King nor Dragonlord could.

"_Dost, tidfera, w__ó__pl__é__o__þ geoscæft ond sæl fyrn. Ásecge widsæ ond sé windgereste, hwanne brynenwála geóra forféran æt slæp. Fram sé bæl fenix, sylfym ellen ond alor, sé broðarsibb, bring an lihting æt cynnig beald. Seó mann sy fæg æt deaþ in wældréor. Wiccung fram sé Eorðe, cume æt me. Forslæwe hine heorte. Sypian sé laþsip ond forierre sé deoþgedál. Swígan wóp úle, ond gelangie dæg æblæc léoht sé swigeniht."*_

Beneath their lids, Balinor's eyes flared gold. The rush of magic he felt was unlike anything he had experienced before. It raced through his body, stealing the last of his breath, and his energy. Silent, his hands fell to his sides. He swayed, and collapsed out of his chair, out cold.

Rion caught him from hitting the floor, gently easing his unconscious son back into his seat and holding him there, terror on his face to find Balinor completely unresponsive.

On the cot, Godwyn's breathing evened out, and slowed. It continued to slow, until it was no longer audible, or visible in the rise and fall of his chest. He no longer moved at all.

Constantine put his ear to his friend's chest, panic written all over him even as Gaius pressed two fingers to Godwyn's neck. "His heart has stopped." The King breathed. Rage contorted his features. He rose to his feet all of his ire directed towards the unconscious, oblivious sorcerer slumped opposite him. "He has killed him!"

Rion's arms looped protectively around Balinor, pulling his son to his chest. "You asked too much of him!" He shot back at Constantine. "He is not schooled in magic! What you demanded was beyond his power!"

"Sire-" Gaius' quiet voice prevented the argument from progressing any further. "He lives."

"What?" Constantine turned to Gaius with a deep frown. "His heart has stopped."

The physician shook his head. "No. It has not." He sent a fond, disbelieving look at Balinor where the boy had begun to snore lightly in his father's arms. "What Balinor has done is slow Godwyn's heart almost to the point of death. He could not cure the poison, but somehow he has acted to almost halt its spread through the King's body. Godwyn's entire body has slowed to a crawl."

Constantine stared at the boy in surprise. "He could do that, yet not simply cure him?"

Gaius shook his head. "There is much about Balinor that I do not know. That he does not even know himself. His magic and its capabilities are very much uncharted territory as he has never been taught. I can, however, say with a degree of certainty that he is probably unaware of what he has just done."

"... He did this... without meaning to?"

"I believe so."

Rion glanced down at his boy in amazement. Balinor lay against him, his cheek snuggled into his father's chest, completely deaf to the talk going on around him. Not for the first time, but certainly with the most conviction, Balinor questioned why his child had been gifted magic. Inevitably, he found himself fearing, as he had many times before, exactly what his boy may become because of it.

Constantine watched the still form of Godwyn thoughtfully. "Will this harm him, in the long run?" Looking to Gaius and finding the questioning expression on his face prompted him to elaborate. "The magic, not the poison?"

"I don't see why it should." Gaius answered openly. "If anything, it will prevent further damage. Balinor has bought us more time."

"And this... healer you sent for?"

"Alice?"

The King nodded. "Yes. You believe that she will be able to assist?"

"Sire," Gaius laid the spell book closed on his workbench and turned to face his king. He folded his hands neatly inside his sleeves and let a small smile grace his lips. "she is the best healer I have ever known. Her skills in magic far outweigh my own. She will be able to perform the purging spell much more effectively than I ever could."

His physician's words were enough. "Then, I am satisfied."

"Perhaps, Sire," Gaius ventured, noting the slight tremor to the King's hands, and the look of thunder on Rion's face, "you should take some time to be seen around the citadel? Godwyn's entourage are in need of information on their King's condition, and the people require reassurance. Uther is more than capable of neutralising any remaining dangers arising from the issue."

Constantine nodded. "Of course." Gaius didn't want him getting under his feet. That was clear. "I will return later to see how things are progressing."

"Hopefully the news will be better."

Gaius watched him leave, exhaling a small breath of relief once the door was closed. Immediately they were alone he hurried to Balinor's side and began checking the boy over.

Rion held his son in silence until Gaius had finished, when he took a nervous breath. "Is he well?"

"None the worse for wear." Gaius concluded levelly. "He has just exhausted himself. That is all." Fondly, he ruffled the sleeping boy's hair and managed a small smile. "We'd best get him to bed."

"What of Godwyn?"

"He will be fine for a few moments." Just to be sure, Gaius threw an assessing glance at the almost frozen King. "Balinor needs to be made comfortable. He has seriously overexerted himself."

With a nod, Rion gathered his boy into his arms.

He really was light – still only a slip of a boy, and almost weightless to what he should be. Many times Gaius had assured Rion that Balinor was slender as he was still growing. While it was reassuring, it did not completely allay a worried father's concern.

Rion's arms were not even tired when he lay Balinor on his bed. He stepped back while Gaius fussed around the boy, covering him up with the blanket and tucking him in. Running a hand back through his thick, dark hair, the Dragonlord breathed a sigh, watching the care with which Gaius treated Balinor. It gladdened Rion's heart to know that his boy had another who cared for him so. One who could be there in those stoic, introspective moments Balinor was occasionally known to drift off into. With his duties, Rion knew that he could not always be there. Even if those lonely moments of his son's were much decreased since coming to Camelot and befriending others his own age.

He set a fond gaze on Balinor where the boy lay on his side, snoozing against the pillow clutched automatically in his hands. He barely recognised the young man he was becoming; the change in him since coming to Camelot, as opposed to the memories of a small, quiet and unduly thoughtful child that held precedence in his mind conflicted so much.

"There." Gaius joined him at the foot of Balinor's bed, looking the boy over with a quietly pleased eye. "He should sleep it off quite comfortably." He looked to Rion with a proud, yet cautious smile. "He has done well."

"Yes." Without question he had. And yet... Rion lowered his eyes and coughed lightly. He turned to follow Gaius from the room, pausing a moment to run a hand over one of the numerous wooden carvings standing on the desk against the wall, and an eye over the almost empty bookshelf on the other side of the door. He swallowed and descended the stairs to the physician's chambers, closing the door as he went.

"He will be fine, Rion." Gaius told him, able to see the troubled expression on the Dragonlord's face. "I know how you worry for him. Most of the time it is justified, to be sure. In this instance, you need not."

"Thank you, Gaius." Rion took up a lean at the edge of the workbench where Gaius had begun concocting something, "for caring for him, when I am not always able."

"It is my pleasure." Gaius returned almost off-handedly. "It is your duties that keep you from him. Not a lack of desire to be there."

Rion swallowed again, and fixed his eyes on the scratched old wood beneath his fingertips. "I hope that he realises that."

"He does." Gaius assured him. "He appreciates the time you are able to spend with him."

The Dragonlord gave no answer to that. He ran a shaky hand over his beard and exhaled quietly. "I must go and attend to some of those duties now. Tell Balinor that I shall return to see how he is later on, should he wake before then."

"Did you not wish to see the King earlier?" After all, Gaius had assumed that was why Rion had come to his chambers. He knew Godwyn was here – Rion had been the one to bear him here.

He had assumed right, and did not miss the shadow that descended on the Dragonlord's face, nor the way his previously loose fingers curled into tight, white-knuckled fists.

"It can wait." Rion said gruffly. "I have little desire to see Constantine at present."

And Gaius understood perfectly. He knew how important Balinor was to his father, and exactly how protective the man could be of his child. Rion and Balinor shared the same passive nature, but underlying it in the father was a temper to end all tempers. When impassioned to the point of outburst, Rion was positively fearsome. One way to bring out the fighter in him was to threaten his son. Rion had walked in to find Constantine shouting at Balinor, hadn't he?

"And if the King should enquire as to your whereabouts?"

"Tell him I am elsewhere – anywhere, I don't care. So long as it is not the caves."

Gaius understood his friend's reasons well enough. He had come to know Rion well in the years before coming to Camelot. Ealdor, Gaius' home village was a few miles North of Engerd. Their paths had crossed many times over the years. He knew that Rion was a solitary soul, and also that he was wont to do something he might regret if angered enough. Rion needed time to cool down.

"If Balinor wakes and has need of you before you return, I will send for you."

Rion gave a grateful nod, and made to leave. He hesitated at the door, glancing back at the physician working at the bench and winced a moment as he struggled to find the words he wanted. "Gaius?"

Silent, Gaius looked up, meeting Rion's searching, blue eyed-stare.

The Dragonlord drummed his long fingers against the door frame a moment. Words never had been his strong point. "If he wakes, tell him that he has done well."

Gaius gave a nod. "I will.

Rion returned the nod, and hurried out of the room, leaving the physician to his work.

* * *

_* Cor y Cewri – 'Council of the giants', the traditional Welsh name for Stonehenge._

_* Cyhyraeth – The Welsh version of the Banshee. Dwells beside rivers and screams three times for those who are about to die. Also for Welshmen dying far from home. _

_* Purging spell – 'Purge the poison. Cleanse the blood of the foxglove and stop its journey in the veins. Blood, roar to my magic. Force your fellow traveller from the body. Restore him to health!'_

_* The Mega spell – Sing, traveller whose time has come, the elegy of fate and times of old. Tell of open sea and the windy resting place, when great kings depart to sleep. From the phoenix flame, of Elder and Alder. The kinship of brothers, bring relief to the brave king. That man is destined to die in the blood of battle. Magic of the Earth, come to me. Slow his heart. Delay the painful journey and the painful separation. Silence the shrieking of the owl, and summon bleak day to light the night of silence.' _

_****__Notes:_ I **_love_** foreshadowing. Oh Uther, how you make me smile.


	6. I: Chapter VI

- Six -

* * *

The castle had never seemed so big before. It took what felt like an age to reach the dungeons from the physician's chambers. Uther swung one arm as he walked, his other hand resting on the hilt of his sword at his hip in an effort to keep his mind focussed. Despite what his father had said, none of it could be true. He _knew_ that it could not. Edmund was not the treacherous type. Nor would he ever be. That he should have been accused in the first place was simply preposterous.

Descending the steps to the dungeons, Uther found the very notion more and more disturbing. The thought that somebody who had cared for him, who had catered for his every need so without question since he was a boy could be secretly bent on bringing Camelot to war... it didn't bear thinking about. Could nobody be trusted?

At the foot of the stairs, a group of knights could be seen standing together in a cluster. Among them was the fair head and sharp brown eyes of Gorlois. He noted the prince's approach and hailed him, prompting his fellows to do the same.

Uther jogged down the last steps and looked to Gorlois for a report. "Has he spoken?"

Gorlois shook his head, a tired huff on his lips. "Only to protest his innocence, my Lord. He maintains it, despite the circumstances."

"I see." Uther clenched his teeth behind closed lips a moment in thought. Because as much as Balinor called him thick, nothing could be further than the truth. "Gorlois, come with me. The others of you -" he turned to the other knights, "remain here. He _will _talk to me."

His men nodded almost in unison, and proceeded to make themselves comfortable on the dungeon steps.

There were few people in the dungeons at present. Uther had to follow Gorlois along to the cell in which Edmund was held. A heavy feeling of dread grew in the pit of the prince's stomach. What if his belief in his devoted manservant's innocence turned out to be misplaced? What if Edmund truly _had_ poisoned Godwyn in an effort to bring war to Camelot? What then?

He was broken from his worries as Gorlois halted at the furthest cell from the guardroom. Uther quickened his pace, realising that his musings had caused him to fall behind.

What he expected to find, and what he did were two very different things. It was with no small measure of relief that he set eyes on Edmund – normal, slightly grey and always reliable Edmund – sitting huddled against the far wall of the cell, looking both devastated and mortified in equal measure. Uther had to take a steadying breath and fight back his smile to find his manservant looking as he always did, and not appearing as the half-mad, crazed fanatic he had taken it into his head that he would find if he was wrong.

At the sight of his master, Edmund hurried to his feet amid a clanking of chains, and performed a customary and practiced bow. "Sir." No more words fell from his lips. Instead he folded his hands neatly behind his back and kept his mousy head bowed as was proper.

Uther stepped forward past Gorlois and gripped the bars of the cell tightly. "Edmund. How are you? Are you well?"

The servant gave a nod. "Quite well, Sir. Though..." He trailed off and gave a fearful glance about his cell.

Uther returned the nod. "Of course. I am looking into remedying the situation as quickly as possible." He paused a moment, and lowered his voice to a softer, gentler tone, encouraging his loyal retainer to look up at him, "Edmund, I need you to tell me everything. All that happened between your entering the kitchens and Godwyn's receiving his meal. Leave nothing out. Even the smallest detail could be vital."

Edmund gave another nod, and approached the bars. He quailed a little at Gorlois' subtle hand movement towards the sword at his belt, but only made effort to approach Uther more slowly.

A few feet from the bars, just to be safe, he halted, and clasped his hand in front of him, wringing them fretfully. "There is not much to tell, Sir." He murmured, fighting to keep his voice level and without quiver. "I woke from my bed and proceeded to the kitchens to collect Lord Godwyn's meal. It was placed into my hands by the cook and Audrey, the head maid, themselves. The boy checked it for poison and suffered no ill effect, I might add. I presumed all to be well."

"And after you left the kitchens?"

"I proceeded directly to Lord Godwyn's chambers. At no time was his meal unattended, or out of my hands until it was placed before him."

This did not bode well. Uther furrowed his brow. How could poison have found its way into the meal if it had never left Edmund's most capable hands? He did not want to acknowledge the only possibility. He would not just yet.

"Did _nothing_ out of the ordinary occur this morning?" He pressed further. "Nothing at all?"

"No, Sir." Edmund appeared to pause after his answer, a small frown gradually creasing his forehead. "No... I tell a lie. As I made my way to Lord Godwyn's chambers, I narrowly avoided a collision with a serving boy. It was all that I could do to keep from dropping the platter."

Something inside Uther leapt on this new information with vivacity and a powerful flare of hope. "What did this serving boy do?"

"Nothing much, Sir. He assisted me in straightening, and brushed off my tunic in a manner I thought most helpful. He then apologised, and passed by on his way."

"Do you know the boy?"

Edmund opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He searched his memories a moment, and considered his response carefully. "No, Sir. I have never encountered him before. I simply assumed him to be new. It is not uncommon for the castle staff to acquire new servants in the run up to great events."

"Such as a royal visit." Uther mused aloud. He turned his gaze back on his manservant, and pressed a little closer to the bars. "You did not know the boy, and he did not have any opportunity to tamper with the meal in your hands?"

Edmund looked back at his master in stunned shock. It had not occurred to him previously that the serving boy could have...

He shook his head, however. "It was but the event of a moment. I cannot truly recall if any opportunity should have arisen within it. The memory is rather... fuzzy."

Uther gave a firm nod. "I understand. Tell me, where did this near collision take place?"

"The upper floors, Sir. Past the stairs ascending to the guest chambers, and those assigned to Lord Godwyn."

"And this serving boy? What did he look like?"

"He was young, Edmund recalled. "Of a similar age to yourself, I would venture, Sir. Of fair complexion, but dark hair, I believe." He paused a moment, and bowed his head thoughtfully. "His eyes may have been green. It was but a moment I saw him, Sir. I was rather disorientated by the near accident."

Uther straightened, and glanced back at his brother-in-arms behind him. "Gorlois, have Johfrit and Drydwyn speak to the servants and try to identify this boy. If they cannot, then I want every serving boy matching the description found, and gathered in the Great Hall. You are with me."

Gorlois nodded, and started away towards the guardroom.

Uther looked to Edmund once more. There was a fierce determination on his face that made the servant nervous, and want to enquire as to Balinor's whereabouts as it could only mean trouble for everyone. The prince included.

"I will free you, Edmund." Uther told him firmly. "Fear not."

Despite his worries for Uther's safety, he gave a courteous nod, and stopped Uther as he turned away. "My Lord, what of Lord Godwyn?"

Uther hesitated, aware that he ought not release information to the one accused of committing the crime against Godwyn in the first place, but this was Edmund. The man _was_ innocent. "His condition is grave. Gaius and Balinor are attending him."

Edmund did not speak, but nodded again, sombrely.

Gorlois waited in the guardroom. Uther did not halt there, but continued on up the stairs from the dungeons without a word. The knight followed.

"Where are we going?" He queried, having to speed up in order to keep step with the prince.

Uther did not so much as glance back at him to answer. "To the scene of this almost collision Edmund spoke of. There may be evidence to be found, if that is where the poisoning of the meal took place."

That made sense. Gorlois pressed his lips into a thin line and followed silently. He was well aware that it may all come to nothing. Uther showed an attachment to his manservant, having known him for so long. The prince may be allowing it to cloud his judgement.

Gorlois did find himself worrying over Uther's reaction, should it come to light that Edmund had been lying to them, and that he truly was the one behind it all.

* * *

It truly was remarkable. Godwyn seemed for all intents and purposes, almost frozen. Certainly to the passage of time. Gaius did not know what to make of it. While he was grateful for the extra hours it afforded him in which to find a cure, he could not understand the science of it.

After checking the King over and discovering the man to be completely unharmed by the phenomenon, he had sat back in his chair and simply stared at the man. Once the fact of the matter had fully sunk in, he found himself struggling to believe that it had been his assistant to put Godwyn into this state.

How could a boy who had never been permitted to study magic manage to accomplish such a feat? The words Balinor had spoken – they sounded less like a spell, than a prayer. Could that be it? Had the boy in his desperation called out to some random deity for help and actually received it? Such instances were very rare, but not unheard of.

Either way, Gaius was stumped. It was as he had said to Constantine: there was very little known about Balinor's magic as it was untrained and, ultimately, untested. All the spells the boy knew, he had 'picked up' around the town or the citadel, or had heard Gaius use in his presence. He was very quick on the uptake, and had a natural gift for the language of magic. At times, Gaius suspected that he may have been born fluent, a gift given only to the most talented of magic users. Balinor could already incant silently, and his manipulation of his magic was simply astounding to watch. It bent to his will with such ease, it left someone who had to work at controlling and shaping magic – such as Gaius himself – quite frustrated to watch.

Or he had learnt it from books. That boy devoured books faster than he did meals, and _that_ was saying something.

All of Balinor's more mischievous, and certainly less useful spells were of his own design, adapted from those he had seen used elsewhere. From what he had been saying the previous day at breakfast, he had been employing his magic in defence of Uther, though exactly how often that was, Gaius still wondered.

He knew that Balinor talked his way out of most of his problems. The boy was peaceful to a fault, and did not like to raise a hand against anyone or anything. Though, even the quietest man could be provoked.

The nature of both the boy, and his magic eluded Gaius, as did the full mechanics of what currently kept Godwyn alive. He trusted Balinor, no matter how much the boy baffled him on occasion, and would happily put his own life in his assistant's hands should he ever need to.

Having left Godwyn's side some time ago to prepare a new solution with which to dose the King, Gaius still found himself pondering the puzzle that was Balinor, son of Rion.

Having known Rion for so long, he had of course come across Balinor in the boy's very early years, Before father and son came to Camelot, it had been a long while since physician and Dragonlord had seen one another. Gaius had hardly been able to believe that the tall, stick thin boy who dismounted his borrowed horse the day they arrived in the courtyard, only to get his foot caught in the stirrup and end up hopping helplessly on one foot while two guards assisted him, was Balinor.

The differences between father and son were marked indeed.

Rion was broad-shouldered, and held a presence that none could deny or argue with. Balinor was a slender, will-o'-the-wisp of a boy. If no one was looking for him, he could easily go unnoticed.

Rion possessed great skill with a sword, and could hold his own against a knight, should the need to do so arise. Balinor barely knew the correct way to hold a sword, let alone wield one.

Rion held great reservations about magic, and did not know the joy that could come from possessing it. Balinor Revelled in magic. He breathed it, felt it in his every fibre; played with it, as it too seemed to play with him. He loved it.

In fact, aside from his gruffness of tone on occasion, one would be hard pressed to believe father and son alike at all. Physically, Balinor shared his father's brows, that was for certain, and his nose. Those ears... well, where they were from was anyone's guess.

In all, however, aside from the obvious outward similarities, there were aspects of Balinor that clearly did not come from his father. No. With those waves just beginning in the length of his hair, his slenderness, and those dark, dark eyes, Balinor was quite like-

Gaius shook his head, and put all thoughts concerning the subject out of his mind. His boy was a mish-mashed puzzle. One, which at present, could not be properly solved as there was no time to dedicate to so arduous a task.

He was snapped from his thoughts by a tentative knock at the door. He glanced up from his work, but only briefly.

"Come."

A feminine face peeked around the door, curious blue eyes performing a sweep of the large chambers from beneath a mousy blonde fringe curled over its top by a thick braid.

At the sight of her, Gaius' slightly irritated frown softened into a small, warm smile. He set down his beaker and held out his hands to her. "Alice."

She mirrored his smile, and entered the chambers, pausing only to close the door behind her. She crossed the room to him, raising her hands to take his as they met, and she looked him over with a fondness that warmed him from head to toe. "How are you, Blaise?"*

Gaius' brow creased a little at the use of his surname, but he knew that she only did it to tease. He drew a breath, and sighed heavily. "Well, but at a loss."

Alice tilted her head, examining his expression closely. "Oh? That is why you have sent for me?"

Before he could answer, she turned her soft gaze on Godwyn where he lay so still upon the patient's cot. To her credit, her eyes only widened fractionally with recognition, before she schooled her face into the practiced neutrality with which she approached all of her work. "Well, then. What seems to be the problem?"

Gaius appraised her a moment, smiling inwardly at her composure and bravery. Whoever Uther sent to retrieve her must have told her nothing. "Lord Godwyn has been poisoned."

Her expression did not change. "With?"

"Digitalis. A large dose, administered in a meal." He paused, and gathered his tired thoughts before continuing. "Efforts to purge the poison with magic have been unsuccessful. He has been given a tincture of yarrow and dandelion to stimulate water production, and I have flushed out his stomach."

Alice considered the information carefully before nodding. "Right." She crossed to Godwyn's side and lay a hand on his forehead briefly before checking his pulse. As she felt for the beats, her eyes flew wide. "Gaius. His pulse is so slow!"

Her surprise came as none to Gaius, approaching behind her with arms folded to take up position at her side. "Balinor." He explained levelly. "After his attempts to purge the poison failed, he managed to slow Godwyn's heart to a crawl."

Alice appeared stunned a moment longer. She nodded her head, and returned her attention to their patient. "Good. That gives us more time. He seems unresponsive to physical treatment. We must purge the poison. Which spell did Balinor use?"

Without a word, Gaius fetched the relevant book and placed it open on the bed at Godwyn's side. "Balinor was unable to make it work. He had never attempted a spell of this nature before."

"Healing magic is not always the easiest to master." Alice acknowledged, and raised her hands over Godwyn's chest. With a deep breath, she began to recite the words of the spell on the pages in front of her, magic leaping to the fore in the golden glow of her eyes as the spell took effect.

Or at least, should have taken effect.

Uncertain, she glanced over her shoulder at Gaius, and tried again.

The result was the same. Her magic leapt to her use, the spell touched Godwyn, but it had no effect.

She lowered her hands to her sides, and looked to Gaius. He stared back at her in confusion.

"Why did it not work?" He queried. "It is the correct spell for the poison?"

"It is." Alice confirmed. "It ought to have worked. However, I fear that there may be more at work her than just poison."

Gaius stared at her. "Magic?"

"It may be so." She turned to Godwyn once more, and lay a hand on his forehead. Closing her eyes, she attempted to divine any foreign magic within the King's body. "I have heard of magic being used to increase the potency of certain poisons before, making them resistant to healing magic." Something warm, and... joyful found her, brushed against her in a manner that was almost friendly, and put her in mind of a puppy, or small, carefree dog intent on play. Magic for sure, but innocent magic, without malice or ill intent in its pure form and warmth. Balinor's magic, she assumed, given that the boy had been using it on Godwyn. She brushed it aside somewhat reluctantly, and continued her search. "It is not beyond the realms of imagination that this could have been done to the digitalis he ingested. "

There was definitely something else... there! A small roil against her probing magic from somewhere within the stricken man. "The purging spell will not work."

"Not at all?"

She shook her head. "Not in my hands. A more powerful sorcerer than I is needed, I am afraid."

"The priestesses have already left on their pilgrimage. There is no sorcerer known to us who could perform the spell remaining in Camelot." Gaius heaved a sigh. To send word to Nyneve now would be futile. The only way would be via magic, and again the time it would take for her to return would be too long for Godwyn. Even with the distance a transportation spell could cover, the priestesses would have travelled too far for it to be of any use now. They had left long before first light. He had toyed briefly with the idea of seeking out the Druids, but alas, they currently held no camp near Camelot's walls. The closest clan he knew of dwelt in the Forest of Ascetir. They, like the priestesses, would not make it to the city in time, even if a raven was sent with a message calling for them.

It was a shame that a raven could not bring someone back with it, as well as deliver a message. Flight would be infinitely faster than horseback-

Gaius almost slapped himself. How could he have been so foolish!?

Hurriedly, he made for his workbench, picked up a quill and scrawled a quick missive which he then took to the door and handed to the guard posted outside. "Deliver this to Lord Rion. You will find him in the caves below the citadel. It is of utmost importance that he receive it quickly."

At the urgency in the physician's voice, the guard did not argue about leaving his post, but took the missive and hurried away to do as he was bid.

Alice regarded him with a knowing look as he returned to her side. "I take it you have thought of a means of finding a more powerful sorcerer?"

"Yes." He answered gravely, and titled his head to look down at Godwyn's disturbingly sallow face. "Let us hope it is not too little, too late."

"In the mean time, we must not sit idle. Come on," Alice turned from Godwyn and made for the workbench, brushing Gaius' arm affectionately as she went, "there are other treatments we can try. Help me make a poultice."

Gaius blinked, and followed her. She was right, Even if help may be on the way soon, they must not do nothing while they waited. Balinor had bought them more time, they should not waste it. As healers they were duty bound to search for a solution, and search they would.

* * *

There was surely something undignified in all this. Uther could not shake the thought of how he must look, trailing his way up and down the corridor outside the citadel's guest chambers, low to the ground in a sort of squatting creep.

His fingertips brushed about the stone floor in search of something – anything that could be interpreted as evidence. Some feet ahead of him along the corridor, Gorlois did the same thing. However the brown-eyed knight managed it, Uther could not work out, and he found himself intensely jealous of the fact that he could, but Gorlois looked anything but foolish with his look of deep concentration, and focus. Still every bit the knight of Camelot even in such a ridiculous position. Uther knew that he himself must look like an absolute twat.

Still, he was glad that it was Gorlois he had chosen to aid him in this... embarrassing task. He trusted all of his knights implicitly, but they were his father's men as much as well as they were his. Gorlois was his man through and through. They were the same age, had begun their training as knights together, and knew one another perhaps better than anyone.

… Except for Balinor, but he hardly counted as a real person. More a part of the furniture that was somehow part way intelligent.

Discounting the idiot sorcerer, Uther would say that Gorlois was likely his closest friend. He was the only one of Uther's former friends who had not gravitated away after Balinor landed in the prince's life. There was not another knight the prince would trust so wholly and absolutely to assist him in something that would likely be against the King's orders. Edmund was, after all, guilty in Constantine's mind. While this investigation was clearly absolute folly in Gorlois' eyes, he was still here, picking his way along a corridor in search of something that may not be there, simply because Uther needed to do it. That was what set him apart from the others.

This truly was a ridiculous thing he had asked Gorlois to do. The very idea of how he must look repeated on him once again, even as he forced it from his mind. Or tried to. The other knights were investigating properly, and here he was doing this. At his own behest, but still. THIS. If anybody saw him-

"Uther!"

The prince's head shot up. Gorlois' call came from just around the corner, towards the head of the stairs. The sense of urgency it carried had Uther up and running.

He reached the corner and came to a halt. Gorlois stood there, holding back the curtain covering one of the castle's many alcoves. Underneath the fabric, kicked aside as though hidden in a hurry, were shards of glass. A broken phial.

A grin broke over Uther's lips. "Ha! That is what I think it is, isn't it?"

Gorlois nodded, looking more than a little surprised himself. "An apothecary's phial, it looks like." The young knight raised both eyebrows, and turned his head to look at his prince, stunned. "It seems you were right, Uther."

"There's no need to sound so surprised about it."

Gorlois made no reply to that. He pressed his lips into a thin line, and bent to very carefully pick up one of the shards. Tentative, he examined it, and gave it a sniff.

"Well?" Uther demanded, watching his friend's actions closely.

"It has a strange odour."

"What king of 'odour'?"

Slowly, careful as not to let the glass actually touch Uther, Gorlois held the shard out to the prince that he may experience the 'odour' for himself.

Uther sniffed the shard, and immediately wrinkled his nose. "I see. A very strange 'odour' indeed."

"Have you any idea what it is?"

"No. Not for certain. It could well be the poison used against Godwyn, as I suspect. We must get it to Gaius at once. He will know."

Gorlois nodded and tugged at the length of rich, royal blue silk tied around his upper arm. Once it was free, he cautiously wrapped a few of the shards up in it and pocketed them. Though it was unusual to use a lady's favour in such a way, and may well offend most who would offer one, Gorlois did not think that the particular lady who had gifted him it would mind too much. She was hardly a conventional lady of court, after all.

Nodding to one another, the two knights set off down the stairs for the tower and the physician's chambers.

Uther, as he went, could not help but feel a small wash of relief. While it was not conclusive evidence of Edmund's innocence – his father would just say that Edmund used the phial to poison Godwyn himself – it was something to corroborate Edmund's story. Now if they could just find this serving boy and get him to confess, then his manservant would be free to go.

Hopefully, in the mean time, Gaius and Balinor had found some way to cure Godwyn. He certainly hoped that they had, or the danger to the kingdom would not pass. Not until they found this boy...

* * *

Evening had drawn in. The sun had sunk in the sky, replaced by the pale silver of the rising moon over Camelot's rooftops.

Balinor stirred, and nuzzled his cheek into his pillow. With a deep breath he cracked his eyes and groggily glanced about. Somehow, he was not surprised to find himself in his room, tucked up in his own bed. He felt strangely refreshed, and could not recall whether or not Gaius had given him a draught.

Stretching, he raised his hands to press their heels against his eyes. He remembered a little about the moments before he lost consciousness, but it all seemed quite fuzzy. The purging spell would not work for him, and then there had been a rush of very intense, very powerful magic, and he had passed out. Also, Constantine had been yelling at him. That had been a bit unpleasant. The King rarely yelled – only on the battlefield, or at Uther if the prince had done something particularly foolhardy and irksome. It was a nerve-wracking situation for all involved, so it was understandable that tempers had been a bit frayed.

Balinor turned onto his back and stared at the ceiling, blinking away the last traces of sleep. Was this him being passive again? He could understand Constantine's irritation, but still did not particularly enjoy being yelled at by the King.

There was more to worry about than Constantine's being angry with him. Godwyn had been dying.

Balinor pushed himself to sit and get out of bed. He stumbled a bit, searching for a steady footing on the floorboards in his disorientated, post-sleep state. Shivering, he grabbed up the blankets from his bed and wrapped them around his shoulders before heading for the door.

* * *

Godwyn was still alive by the looks of things. Gaius hovered around his patient, examining the effects of the treatments he had administered already.

Balinor clomped down the stairs from his room, hunched into his blankets, in need of their comfort. Gaius was not alone – a woman was also present examining Godwyn alongside the court physician. She must be the Alice Gaius had sent for.

The sound of his feet on the stairs drew both healers to look round at him, and Gaius away from the King's side.

"Balinor." Gaius took him by the shoulders, eyes searching him for any sign of ill health. "How are you feeling, my boy?"

"A bit rough." Balinor answered truthfully, voice slightly hoarse. He _had_ seen better days, but there was nothing horribly wrong with him.

Gaius realised this also, and turned back to the King, guiding Balinor to take one of the seats at Godwyn's side with a warm hand on the boy's shoulder.

No arguments were forthcoming from Balinor, who took the seat gratefully and snuggled down in his blankets that they rose up around his ears.

Alice watched him with a thoughtful eye, her attention pulled from her patient momentarily to settle curiously on the awkward creature now seated a little to her left. Balinor did not seem to realise her interest. His dark eyes were focussed on the sick man laid out in front of him.

"Balinor?"

He looked up, blinking at Alice standing at his side. She was watching him with a kind, fascinated smile on her face. Her smile growing a little, she held her hand out to him. "I am Alice."

"Oh." Remembering himself, Balinor got to his feet and shrugged one shoulder free of his blankets to take her hand and shake it. "M'sorry. It's nice to meet you. Didn't mean to be rude."

Her soft smile twitched in amusement, but she held it from becoming a full grin valiantly. "Not at all. It is a pleasure to meet you." She threw a surreptitious glance at the court physician where he worked at the bench, clearly keeping one eye on them as they met despite his apparent busy behaviour. "Gaius has told me a lot about you."

"He has?" Balinor sent a questioning glance at his mentor, only to be met with a raised eyebrow.

Gaius picked up a clay mug from the bench and left his work to join them. He shrugged off the question within a question he had detected in his assistant's tone, not about to yield to the boy's teasing. "Alice is a healer in the lower town." He explained instead, and held the mug out to Balinor. "I thought her expertise may be more beneficial than mine in this case."

The gentle tone in his voice, and the softness with which he gazed at Alice gave everything away, though the man did not realise it. Balinor smiled to himself, though he refrained from saying anything about it while Alice was present. Tormenting Gaius could wait until later.

He took the mug from his mentor and peered inside before taking a long, deep mouthful of the lovely, sweet liquid inside. Warm milk and honey. His favourite, as Gaius well knew.

Over the rim of the mug, he noted that Alice was watching him, still with that warm smile.

"I was admiring your work." She told him, folding her hands neatly at her skirts, measuring his reaction carefully. "Your spell has held firm and in all certainty, saved Godwyn's life, for now. It has definitely bought us more time in which to treat him."

Yes. Gaius had said that Godwyn only had four hours to live, and that was this morning. Balinor felt himself pale, and swallowed his milk before it had a chance to go down the wrong way. "Thank you." He murmured, shifting uncomfortably. He was unsure what else to say on that subject. It was not as though he had _meant_ to cast whatever spell he had.

Ignoring his assistant's unease, Gaius stepped up to Godwyn's side and placed a hand on the King's forehead. "Yes. He surely would have succumbed to the poison had you not used your magic." With an eyebrow raised in thought, Gaius peered at his assistant in a searching manner. "The words you used sounded more like a prayer than the words of a spell. Do you remember what happened?"

Unsure, Balinor shook his head lightly. "I don't know."

"That's alright." Gaius returned his attention to his patient a moment to check the King's pupils. "They did the trick, whatever they were."

Confused, Balinor dropped his eyes to the mug in his hands. What _had_ he done? All he knew was that the spell he had meant to cast was not working, and then suddenly he was uttering words he had not meant to say.

The conflict on his face was very clear as Alice lay a hand on his arm, bringing him back from his musings to look at her. She still wore that same smile on her kind face; one that reached her eyes in its honesty. "Balinor, I should like it very much if you would assist me."

Without waiting for an answer she took a seat at Godwyn's side, and patted the chair beside her to encourage him to join her.

He did, looking back at her curiously as he waited for her to tell him what she wished him to do. There was a poultice beside Godwyn on the cot, made of Hessian and marked with symbols of the Old Religion.

"I have been attempting to stem the poison by treating the sickness it causes, drawing it out little by little." She explained, indicating the poultice. "The poison is augmented with magic. That is why you could not get the purging spell to work."

Balinor frowned, drawing his thick brows together. That made sense. It helped him feel a little less useless, also.

"With both of us working on it, we ought to be able to do good a little faster for the poor man." Alice concluded, sending a questioning glance Balinor' way. "What do you think? Do you feel up to it?"

There was nothing wrong with his magic. Perhaps _he_ felt a little sleepy still, but he was very much able to weave and use his magic as much as he always was. "I do."

Alice's smile twitched again, resisting the urge to become a bright grin. "That's the spirit. Now-" she leant forward a little and placed her hands on the poultice. "The spell I have been using is a very useful one. "Ahlúttre þar séocnes."* The poultice in this instance is fulfilling its role as a poultice, but also as a conduit for the magic. Do you understand?"

Balinor nodded, keeping a close eye on Alice and everything that she did. Somewhere, deep down, he felt a leap of joy. Somebody was talking magic with him. Somebody was _teaching_ him magic.

She returned his nod. "Good. Now, watch closely."

Slowly, clearly, she recited the spell, her hands resting lightly on the poultice. Her eyes burned gold, the poultice momentarily took on a similar glow, before fading back to normal. It was not much, neither did it last long, but it was something.

Once the glow in both her eyes, and the poultice, had completely faded, she turned to Balinor. "There. Now, you try."

He swallowed, and glanced nervously over his shoulder at Gaius. At the bench, Gaius continued to work, though he paused a moment to raise his eyes to meet his assistant's. He understood Balinor's hesitance, and gave a small nod.

Balinor swallowed again, and turned back to Godwyn and the poultice. He handed Alice his half-full mug, and placed his hands on the poultice as she had done. With a deep breath, he steadied himself, and closed his eyes.

"Ahlúttre þar séocnes." Beneath his palms, the poultice glowed as it had for Alice, and Godwyn took a slow, shallow, shuddering breath.

Alice gave an approving nod. "Very good, Balinor."

Gaius had not returned to his work, but watched on silently. He did not say anything, but elected instead to add a pinch of herbs to the beakers bubbling away in front of him.

"Now we must repeat the spell and continue to draw out the sickness slowly." Alice told her temporary apprentice, quietly impressed with the boy's level of natural skill. Gaius had not been false in his fervent praise of the boy.

Balinor nodded, and did as she told him, repeating the spell at short intervals.

Seeing that he knew well enough what he was doing, Alice left Balinor to it and joined Gaius at the bench to assist him. She kept a quiet eye on Balinor as she worked, able to sense that the spell continued to work, and the poultice continued to draw out the poison's ill effects. "You made no exaggerations." She told Gaius in a low voice. "He has raw talent."

"Indeed." Gaius raised his beaker and swilled the liquid around inside before checking its colour against the chart in a nearby book.

"It would appear that he has an affinity for healing magic. That spell is not the most simple to master, despite its length and inflections." She bundled some sage together ready to tie up and burn.

"I had suspected as much." Gaius admitted, and cast a quick glance at Balinor to see the boy working the spell again.

"With proper training..."

Gaius shook his head. "I agree. But it is not I who prevents it. His father is not keen that Balinor learns magic. I cannot train him if Rion forbids it."

"And why forbid it?" Alice almost demanded, though she kept her voice hushed that Balinor would not overhear. "I should be proud if a child of mine displayed such aptitude. Not to train him is to prevent him from reaching his full potential."

"Alice." Gaius placed his beaker on the bench and turned to her, He opened his mouth as though to speak, but no words came out, Instead, he cast a glance Balinor's way to see his assistant oblivious to the conversation where he concentrated on healing Godwyn. Still, Gaius took a hurried breath and turned his back to the boy and the bench to speak with Alice in a whisper.

"You know that I would never hide from you any of my own secrets or reasons." He assured her almost imploringly. "But these are not my reasons to give, nor my secrets to tell. Rion believes his actions in this matter justified. He wishes only to protect Balinor, even if that be to the detriment of his gifts. It is not for me to tell his reasons why."

Though she did not look entirely satisfied, Alice did nod her head and laid a hand on Gaius' arm. "I understand, Gaius. Though there is no denying that it is a shame. The boy is wasted like this."

"I teach him what I can of physical healing." Gaius replied, and returned to his preparation.

"And yet he could do so much more."

Her wistful tone reflected his own feelings on the subject, but Gaius remained silent. As much as he cared for Balinor, and treated him like a son, he was not the boy's father. Decisions concerning Balinor's future beyond his work as physician's assistant rested with Rion, and Rion alone. What Rion decided, Gaius knew that he must stick to. "Is that sage ready?"

"Almost." Alice tied off the bundle and raised one hand to hover over it. "Cume þrosm áfeormian. Bringé lihtling æt sé mann."*

The small sage bundle began to burn, and smoke. Alice offered Gaius a fond smile, before heading back to Balinor and Godwyn with the sage.

As she went, Gaius watched her and found himself unable to shake off what she had said. He agreed with it. To possess such talent, yet to be denied training for it was a waste. Speaking as one with the gift of magic, however comparatively small, to see one who possessed such ability and potential languish without chance to use it was a real shame. Yet, he also spoke as one who knew the reasons behind the decision. Perhaps he did not agree with them, but Gaius understood Rion's fears. He just wished that circumstances could be different. Things would be a lot easier on Balinor, if they were.

* * *

_**Notes:**_ So unashamedly me writing for the love of it :P Anyone else who wants to tag along on this journey is more than welcome whether you feel like making yourselves known or not, it's here for any others who wish to enjoy it xxx I'm happy to see people looking my rambling chapters over, whether I hear from you or not. I do fear, though, the unforeseen circumstance of falling totally in love with these young, impressionable characters, as I am so very definitely doing. It wouldn't be so bad, if I didn't have to inevitably rip each and every one of them to absolute shreds :( It is interesting to write a story with a set ending, however, even if it _is_ likely to leave me blubbering in a heap of tears somewhere.

So, we've met Uther, Balinor, Nimueh, a not-so-young-as-he-was-likely-never-young Gaius, and now Alice and Gorlois. Two more of our central cast have been mentioned thus far - one directly by name, the other only alluded to. Why not take a minute to look back and try and find them, if you fancy. One's easy, the other's virtually impossible at this stage, but kudos if you do find _her_ :) We shall be meeting another of our young band next chapter. Also, Uther: Action Prince!

There should only be a couple more chapters to this part as I have cut it down a lot. The other parts shan't be as long as this first one (I'm looking at each self-contained story as a part, made up of chapters), I don't think as there won't be as much need for exposition and the groundwork with most of the characters will be more or less done, and we'll be free to get to know them properly at our leisure.

Anyway. Spells:

* _Ahl__ú__ttre __þ__ar s__é__ocnes_ – Cleanse the sickness (very useful for Balinor, and extremely helpful for Arthur :p )

*_ Cume __þ__rosm __á__feormian. Bring__é__ lihtling __æ__t s__é__ mann_ – Come forth healing smoke. Bring relief to this man.

And general notes:

* Blaise – The name of Merlin's mentor in legend, and likely the character on whom Gaius was based.


End file.
